Medical blunders sapping public confidence
The heartbreaking story of a baby girl slipping into a coma after a supposedly successful liver operation at Queen Mary Hospital has touched the hearts of many Hong Kong people and drawn public attention to the quality of the city’s healthcare service.
Recognizing the gravity of the matter, the medical authorities have said they would conduct a thorough investigation into the tragedy. At stake is the public’s confidence in the medical service that is always of the greatest concern because it’s seen as the only social benefit that really matters besides public housing.
For years, Hong Kong’s public healthcare service, which is provided free to those who cannot afford even the token fees, has been the pride of the people and the envy of many neighboring cities and territories.
But public trust in public hospitals has been eroded in recent years by some widely publicized medical mishaps. It’s easy to lay the blame on the shortage of doctors and nurses, who complain about the long hours and lack of appreciation. The public, however, simply refuses to accept that as an excuse for declining medical standards.
The problem is compounded by what’s widely seen as the cavalier approach of some medical professionals in crisis management. Investigations into cases of alleged negligence or irregularities usually take months, if not years, to complete. What’s most irksome is that the results of those investigations are seldom conclusive and the findings are usually shrouded in arcane medical terms and jargon.
Such officiousness does nothing but deepens the mistrust between the public and the hospital authorities. To address the issue, the government has proposed reforming the Medical Council, a self-governing body, by adding more people outside the profession to the board. But, the process has dragged on for many months largely because of persistent resistance by some doctors.
The reform, which is just beginning to win widespread public support, is deliberately tarnished by radical social activists alleging it could lead to falling medical standards by lowering the bar of entry into the profession for overseas doctors. The fact that such allegations tend to stick suggests growing public concern over hospital standards.
Further deepening such suspicions are the evasive tactics employed by some officials during question-and-answer sessions in the Legislative Council. Legislators have been telling officials to provide clear and precise answers to legislators’ questions no matter how hostile the enquirers may sound.
The government is listening. For instance, it has agreed to address the question of setting a ceiling on expenditure which almost always came up when officials went to LegCo to ask for extra money to cover the cost overruns in an engineering project. Engineering experts have agreed that such apparent mishaps are hard to avoid in infrastructure projects of such size and complexity.
In handling the latest medical case that has become a public concern, it’s particularly important for the authorities to act swiftly and ensure that the findings are set out in language that can be easily understood by laymen. The public is not baying for blood despite allegations, based entirely on superficial observations and hearsay, that negligence was involved in the post-operation process.
The best way for the responsible departments to clear public doubts is to set a time frame to show there’s no intention to give time for the controversy to blow over. The public has a long memory of this special incident with images of the patient burning deeply in their minds.
It is, of course, possible that the hospital and the medical staff involved had followed standard procedures. In that case, the investigating team will have to make recommendations to prevent such a case from recurring.
The investigators must recognize that public confidence in Hong Kong’s most venerable institution is at stake. They have the responsibility to give the public an answer that they can at least understand.