Doctor warns of ‘unprecedented’ pressure on wards

A senior public hospital doctor said on Saturday that hospitals were facing an “unprecedented” situation, as the Covid crisis forced adults and children to share the same wards and an influx of patients at emergency wards leaves ambulances unable to park.

Speaking on a radio programme, Dr Jenny Lee, who’s in charge of the department of medicine at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, said an influx of Covid patients had left medical wards overcrowded.

She said some adults had to stay in children’s wards while some children were staying in adults wards as families infected with Covid were admitted together.

“It’s because some children infected with Covid are so young their parents have to stay with them in the same ward. The mixing at wards is unprecedented,” she said.

Lee said public hospitals’ accident and emergency units were also swamped last weekend, as people who tested positive for Covid had flocked there, leaving ambulances with nowhere to park.

She said people seeking treatment for conditions other than Covid also face longer waiting times.

Meanwhile a government adviser on the pandemic told the same programme that a full lockdown in the SAR should be considered a last resort if Hong Kong continues to report thousands or tens of thousands of cases per day, leaving all hospital and isolation units full.

Professor David Hui, a specialist in respiratory medicine, said imposing a lockdown in Hong Kong would be a major challenge.

Hui said having Covid patients self-isolate at home would be unsatisfactory, given the crowded environment in Hong Kong. He said elderly people and patients with chronic illnesses living in the same households could easily be infected.

Hui said the situation now is like a tug of war between virus transmission and the social distancing rules, and said that a vaccine pass system may have to be expanded to cover public transport, requiring all passengers to receive at least one dose.

The government announced earlier that its vaccine pass would cover 23 types of premises starting from February 24. That means people will have to receive at least one dose to enter places such as restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls.

Hui said that, with so many untraceable infections, many epidemiologists had predicted that the cases would continue to rise and the outbreak could peak next month.