Over 6,200 public hospital incidents recorded in the past three years
The health authority confirmed on Wednesday that over 6,200 medical incidents happened in public hospitals in the last three years, while most were not announced as not involving casualties or service interruptions.
In the Legislative Council today, the undersecretary for health Libby Lee Ha-yun said the Hospital Authority (HA) has received a total of 6,276 reports of mishaps in public hospitals via Advance Incident Reporting System since 2020.
Those incidents involving "Facilities and Environment" counts for 5,004 cases, while 1,272 were classified as "Medical Equipment, Apparatus and Consumables incidents". She described that most incidents were "minor" and not involving casualties or service interruptions.
"Having made assessment of these incidents, the HA had not considered them major incidents and hence did not make public announcements," she said.
She stated that HA has publicly announced 21 cases of serious incidents in the last three years involving casualties or affected services.
In addition, Lee said that about one-third of the more than 300 public medical buildings are 30 to 50 years, while around 130 are even more than 50 years old.
"The HA has renovated and redeveloped seven hospitals or medical institutions in the past decade," she said.
The government will step in the First Ten-year Hospital Development Plan to upgrade hospital facilities in more medical buildings, Lee note.