Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority on Tuesday revealed that a suspected mix-up between police and medical staff over the identities of two dead patients resulted in one of the bodies being wrongly sent to a public mortuary.

A patient, who died on February 28 soon after being sent to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital’s accident and emergency department, was supposed to be transferred to the Victoria Public Mortuary on March 3.

But the transfer was already marked as complete when the body arrived, after hospital staff found a second body had been misidentified as the patient and sent to the mortuary on February 28.

According to the Department of Health, only bodies of those certified dead in the accident and emergency department of a hospital with uncertain or unnatural causes of death will be transferred to a public mortuary. All cases handled in public mortuaries are reportable to the Coroner.

The hospital record showed police had arranged with its accident and emergency department to transfer several bodies to the mortuary on February 28, after an officer and medical worker had checked their identities.

“The hospital has conducted a preliminary investigation and cross-checked the information of the two deceased patients,” a statement from the Hospital Authority said.

“They were of the same gender and their English names looked alike. It was suspected that confusion was encountered during the identity checking process conducted by the hospital staff and the police officer that could have led to the wrong release of the body to the public mortuary,” it said.

The Hospital Authority did not identify the gender of the patients involved in the incident.

The hospital said it had contacted the families to apologise and arranged for the relatives of the patient who died on February 28 to identify the body on Monday.

The statement said it had also reminded staff of the importance of correct identifications, and pledged to further investigate the incident.