HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL-8 March 1989
香港立法局 ——————一九八九年三月八日
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raised by the doctors and nurses are more than 10 years old, they should patiently wait for another year or so for the Hospital Authority to come up with its proposals for reform. For if one were to apply this chop logic to a hospital, it would mean that a patient who has been suffering from pain for 10 hours should not be given immediate attention because he can probably bear it for another hour or so.
Sir, the Government Doctors' Association (GDA) has outlined six pressing problems in their letter dated 30 January 1989 to the chairman of the OMELCO Health Services Panel, relating to poor out-patient services, shortage in the supply of linens, acute shortage of hospital beds, lack of air-conditioning in hospital wards, failure to provide a 24-hour pharmacy service in government hospitals other than regional hospitals, and wasting doctors' time by requiring them to do clerical work. Not only are all these criticisms fair and valid, but the GDA has also proposed clear and simple solutions to these problems. Sir, I really fail to see why these problems are still with us.
Sir, for all these years, the Government's philosophy in public health care has been to provide the minimal service at the minimal cost. And as the public have grown up with the system, they have accepted it as charity bestowed upon them by their Government.
Sir, I insist that this philosophy must now be rejected. For this is the age of consumer rights and Hong Kong has developed into a stage when its people are entitled to have the quality of their life improved. It is therefore the Government's undoubted duty to provide a public health service commensurate with the needs of the modern society and to acknowledge that all patients have certain basic rights. And these include the right to prompt treatment, the right to considerate and respectful care, the right to privacy, the right to information and to make a decision in the light of such information, and the right to complain.
Sir, but what rights do our government doctors and nurses have? Do they not have the right to insist that all their patients be treated with proper care and respect, and that they be given time to ask questions, to listen and to console? Or are they only to dispense medical care like a machine at the rate of three minutes per head, and hope that somehow they have made the right diagnosis and given the right prescription?
Sir, I accept that it may be necessary to overhaul the whole structure of government hospitals, and that the Hospital Authority needs time to do so. I also accept that the present Secretary for Health and Welfare has been instrumental in bringing about some improvements. But there is no good reason
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