XN000022-1997-01-22 — Page 29

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Psychiatric services in public hospitals

Following is a question by Dr the Hon Huang Chen-ya and a written reply by the acting Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Doris Ho, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Is the Government aware of the following data in public hospitals in 1995-96:

(a)

(b)

(c)

the respective numbers of psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric patients who were hospitalised and the respective numbers of psychiatric patients and non-psychiatric patients who attended the out-patient departments;

the respective numbers of psychiatric and non-psychiatric patients who were hospitalised for more than 28 days; and

the establishment and strength of medical doctors and nurses in psychiatric service and non-psychiatric service respectively?

Reply:

Activity statistics are captured by the Hospital Authority based on the number of in-patient discharges rather than individual patients. In 1995/96, there were 8,709 discharges from psychiatric hospitals and units compared with 644,779 discharges from non-psychiatric hospitals and units. Among these cases, a total of 5,199 (59.7%) were involved with psychiatric patients and 27,820 (4.3%) with non-psychiatric patients whose length of hospital stay exceeded 28 days. The number of out-patient attendance for psychiatric and non-psychiatric patients during this period were 320,369 and 3,832,335 respectively.

The planned staffing positions and actual strength of medical and nursing staff providing psychiatric and non-psychiatric services as at March 1996 are as follows:

Planned Staffing Positions

Actual Strength

Medical staff

Psychiatric Non-psychiatric

167

161

2,814

2,808

Nursing staff

Psychiatric

1,893

1,866

Non-psychiatric

16,872

16,772

End