HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL —15 March 1989
香港立法局
————一九八九年三月十五日
62
The Department of Health will be responsible for all public health matters including health education, surveillance and preventive health programmes. It will also be responsible for the operation of the Government's general out-patient clinics, for maternal and child health services and for a number of health services such as child assessment, occupational health, dental services and forensic pathology.
The Hospital Services Department will be responsible for the management and planning of all services in government hospitals and specialist out-patient clinics, as well as the co-ordination and monitoring of the services provided by subvented hospitals.
To give effect to these organizational changes :
(a)
(b)
new heads of expenditure for the two new departments will be created in the context of the draft Estimates for the coming financial year;
the Finance Committee of this Council has already approved, in the context of the 1989-90 draft Estimates, the transfer from the establishment of the Medical and Health Department of 5 226 and 22 425 posts respectively to the Department of Health and the Department of Hospital Services and it has been asked to approve the creation of 10 new directorate posts in the two new departments.
Sir, as Members will be aware, the creation of these new departments is an important first step towards the establishment of a statutory Hospital Authority to assume overall responsibility for the management of all public hospital services. Members will recall that, in 1985, the Government commissioned consultants to undertake a review of the delivery of medical services provided in government and subvented hospitals. During the course of the review, the consultants identified a number of problems affecting the management and co- ordination of services provided in government and subvented hospitals. These included :
(a)
(b)
(c)
a lack of effective regional co-ordination of the services provided by government and subvented hospitals;
less favourable terms of service for staff in subvented hospitals leading to higher wastage rates in these institutions;
problems in the management structure of the large government hospitals; and