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The Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, will start a three-day visit programme in Sichuan tomorrow (September 5) to inspect a number of Sichuan reconstruction medical projects funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government in quake-stricken areas. He will also take the opportunity to meet with health officials of the local government.
Dr Chow will visit Sichuan-Hong Kong Rehabilitation Centre (Centre) and inspect the Sichuan University's West China Hospital's (West China Hospital) Long-distance Medical Network Platform (LMNP) in Chengdu tomorrow. The Centre, when completed, will provide orthopaedics, traumatology, physiotherapy, occupational care, prosthetic services, and clinical psychological counselling.
Of all reconstruction projects funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government in Sichuan, the LMNP is the only project related to software development. The aim of the project is to install the LMNP, in phases within two years, in some 280 medical institutions of different sizes spread over quake-hit areas in Sichuan. Long-distance consultation services and medical training will be provided to those medical institutions under the system by West China Hospital.
Following the visits, Dr Chow will call on the Sichuan Provincial Department of Public Health to learn more about the latest developments in medical and health services there and to discuss issues of mutual concern with relevant officials.
On the morning of September 6, Dr Chow will depart for Deyang to officiate at a ceremony to commemorate the completion of the No. 2 People's Hospital of Deyang. The hospital was seriously damaged in the earthquake. The new in-patient block provides 460 surgical beds and 240 medical beds to cater for a population of four million people in Deyang and its peripheral areas.
He will also visit the Deyang Dongqi Hospital. Comprising a main block, an outpatient block, a medical sciences building and other auxiliary buildings, the new hospital will serve the 300,000 residents in the East Jing River area, tens of thousands of victims from the other earthquake-stricken areas and the 30,000 staff and their family members of the Dongfang Steam Turbine Works in Deyang economic and technological development zone.
Dr Chow will return to Hong Kong on Wednesday (September 7).
Ends/Sunday, September 4, 2011
Issued at HKT 15:01
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