Hong Kong hotel quarantine: woman’s ordeal casts spotlight on city’s strict Covid-19 rules and emergency medical care

Returning resident who fell ill during quarantine had to wait nearly two full days for treatment, despite suffering from what doctors thought was a potentially fatal condition

She is hoping to draw attention to the possible life-threatening consequences of the city’s infection control measures, and calling for them to be reviewed

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A person’s feet can be seen through the window of a government-designated quarantine hotel in Hong Kong. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:15am, 29 Aug 2021Updated: 11:06am, 29 Aug 2021

When a 54-year-old Hong Kong resident serving hotel quarantine experienced severe abdominal pain earlier this month, she called the Department of Health’s designated hotline for medical attention.

The woman’s call marked the start of a 44-hour ordeal to receive treatment, she said, during which she feared she could die. She believes her experience raises serious questions about the impact of Hong Kong’s strict Covid-19 rules on residents requiring medical care.

After arriving at Queen Elizabeth Hospital late in the afternoon of Monday, August 9, the woman, who had been experiencing pain for more than 48 hours, was admitted to the isolation ward for patients under quarantine and assessed as a likely case of appendicitis, according to the woman and her husband. Hospital staff, however, told her she would need to wait until Wednesday for a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis as that was the earliest available slot, the woman said.

The woman’s husband frantically called three private hospitals – Gleneagles Hospital, Matilda International Hospital and Hong Kong Adventist Hospital – to see if his wife could be admitted but all three turned him down, saying due to infection control measures, they did not accept patients serving quarantine.

The couple, European nationals who lived in mainland China for more than 15 years and moved to Hong Kong last year, had returned from a trip to Switzerland with three of their five children. The woman was fully-vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and had already taken two PCR tests for Covid-19 when she requested medical attention on the second day of her 14-day quarantine. Her third test at the hospital was also negative.

An isolation ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

She was able to get a scan on Tuesday afternoon, more than 30 hours after her call for a doctor from quarantine, after a slot unexpectedly opened up. Doctors then diagnosed her with a burst appendix.