Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, recently forced to suspend services at the ear, nose and throat (ENT) department, will gradually resume operations in the second half of this year, or as soon as the next quarter “if possible”, as the Hospital Authority’s chief executive said he saw “light in the tunnel” over manpower shortages.
Tony Ko Pat-sing said on Sunday that the labour crunch that caused the suspension of ENT services at the hospital in Kowloon City since early February had eased.
The suspension left over 500 patients needing to be transferred to other public hospitals.
“The ear, nose and throat [specialisation] itself is not a very large speciality in general hospitals – a networked ENT department usually has about 10 or so colleagues. And at the Children’s Hospital, because they specialise in children, there are even fewer people,” Ko explained.
“We have recently seen light in the tunnel with doctors’ turnover stabilised.”
He said paediatric otolaryngology was a highly specialised field, and doctors trained overseas were also being encouraged to come to Hong Kong to help ease the load.
Specialists in other areas of medicine were also being trained to handle some of the simpler cases, he added.
