HA to beef up manpower ahead of winter flu surge

The Hospital Authority (HA) on Friday said it will beef up manpower and bed capacity to guard against a potential surge in patients during the upcoming holiday period. This came as the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) reported a mild increase in both Covid and influenza cases, with the numbers expected to rise further in January. The HA said it will activate special measures for peak periods from Saturday, including reducing non-urgent hospital admissions and boosting manpower in public hospitals by 10 to 20 percent. Dr Larry Lee, a chief manager with the authority, told a press conference that he's confident public hospitals have enough capacity to cope with a surge in demand. "The most important bit of it is to increase the bed turnover, including making use of our command centre and the day centre, so that we can aim our patients not lasting too long in our hospitals so that we can cater more emergency admissions," Lee said. "According to experience, our measures have improved and enhanced our capability to cope with the increased demand. So if the situations and the service activity will be similar to last year, I think we can cope with it." Lee said the HA will also relaunch a special refund arrangement at accident and emergency departments to ease the pressure on services. Patients who don't want to wait any longer to be seen can apply for a refund of the HK$180 fee within 24 hours of registration. The CHP, meanwhile, appealed to high-risk individuals to get flu vaccines to protect themselves.