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Lauren Chan

The waiting time for total knee replacement surgery has been cut from 56 months to just 15 at the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Tai Po following the opening of a dedicated joint replacement centre there in October.
Such operations were previously available there, but the new centre provides a specialist service.
It became the fourth such centre in the city, after Buddhist, Yan Chai and Pok Oi hospitals. A fifth joint replacement centre at the Duchess of Kent Children’s Hospital opened on July 1.
Osteoarthritis is becoming an increasing problem in Hong Kong
Chronic knee pain due to osteoarthritis is a growing problem among Hong Kong’s ageing population. Total knee replacement is the last resort for serious cases.
The improvement at the Tai Po hospital came about after a cross-departmental team, including orthopaedic specialists and physiotherapists, was set up to handle knee and hip joint replacements.
The team is able to perform 250 operations a year, up from 80 before the centre opened.
There are currently about 400 patients on the Tai Po hospital’s waiting list.
“Because patients are being treated by the same team from start to finish, they feel a lot safer”, said Dr Jason Fan Chi-ho, staff consultant in the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology.
Osteoarthritis, a chronic condition where the joint cartilage breaks down and leads to pain, stiffness and swelling in the joints, affects about 7 per cent of men and 13 per cent of women aged 50 or older in Hong Kong. Most patients at Nethersole Hospital are aged 60 to 70 years.
Hong Kong researchers develop improved treatment for joint diseases
Lau Kai-chi, 68, relied on several painkillers a day for more than a decade to manage pain caused by osteoarthritis before undergoing replacement surgery at the centre.
“Before I couldn’t raise my leg to step over a stone. Now I can walk smoothly,” he said.
“I didn’t seek an operation for so long because of work, but the pain eventually prevented me from doing even that,” he said.
Fan said the centre’s in-house physiotherapy programme meant patients needed only five to seven days of rehabilitation in hospital, rather than the previous 14 days.


Relief offered to Hong Kong osteoarthritis patients at Tai Po hospital after new knee replacement centre opens

More knee replacement surgery will be performed at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Tai Po. Photo: Dickson Lee

News

Hong Kong

Health & Environment

Doctors manage to cut waiting time for knee operations at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital from 56 months to just 15
