Makeshift Hong Kong Covid-19 hospital to offer more services as authority targets ‘pressure points’ in public sector
- Patients referred from public hospitals will be able to receive endoscopy and sleep tests from October 31 at facility in Lok Ma Chau Loop
- New microbiology laboratory has been screening patient samples for multi-drug resistant organisms since October 3
A makeshift hospital built for Covid-19 patients will further expand its services by providing endoscopy procedures, sleep tests and microbiology screening to help reduce the burden on Hong Kong’s stretched public sector.
Patients referred from public hospitals will be able to receive endoscopy and sleep tests at the facility located in the Lok Ma Chau Loop near the border with mainland China from October 31.
A microbiology laboratory has also been in operation to screen for multi-drug resistant organisms since October 3.
“In the past six months since we began our operation, the response from patients has been great, which is heartening,” said Dr Sin Ngai-chuen, clinical stream coordinator of the Hospital Authority’s New Territories East cluster.
“We have seen room for further expansion in accordance with the increasing demand for certain services.
“The infrastructure here allows us to further expand our services and match the needs of our patients. We are targeting the bottlenecks or pressure points at public hospitals.”
Initially designed to hold 10,000 Covid-19 patients, the makeshift hospital was finished with Beijing’s help in April 2022 but left dormant until the authority took it over in January this year.
