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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Joseph Lee and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 17):
Question :
Regarding the manpower of nursing staff in public hospitals, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of nursing staff at all ranks in various hospital clusters of the Hospital Authority (HA) who departed in the past six months and their respective percentages in the total numbers of nursing staff concerned, with a breakdown by hospital departments;
(b) the number of nursing staff employed by the above hospital clusters in the past six months to fill the relevant vacancies; and
(c) the total outstanding time-off hours so far accumulated by the nursing staff in each hospital cluster and HA's solution to the problem of accumulation of outstanding time-off hours resulting from the shortage of nursing staff?
Reply :
Madam President,
(a) From April to November 2006, a total of 402 nursing staff left the Hospital Authority (HA). A breakdown on the wastage during this period by rank and hospital clusters is at Annex A1.
The breakdown of wastage by hospital departments is at Annex A2. The wastage rate of each department ranges from around 2% to 4%. Departments which experienced a relatively higher proportion of wastage include Paediatrics, Ophthalmology, Intensive Care Unit, and Cardio-thoracic Surgery. As there are around 4 000 nurses deployed to different departments from the central pool, the exact strength of nurses in each department is not constant. Hence we are providing the range of overall wastage rate.
(b) The total number of intake of nursing staff from April to November 2006 is 498. The breakdown by cluster at Annex B.
(c) The accumulation of compensation-off (CO) in the HA hospitals has improved over the past six months. The average CO was 1.1 days per nurse in December 2006 compared with that of 1.7 days per nurse in June 2006. A table showing the trend of CO per nurse is at Annex C. The HA has been actively addressing the issue of accumulation of CO, through employment of additional nurses and Temporary Undergraduate Nursing Students (TUNS), as well as more flexible utilisation of continuous night shift.
Ends/Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:13
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