- Doctor says he and his colleagues have been put under intense pressure with the emergence of the new virus
- The Hospital Authority has stressed the situation is under control but frontline medical workers paint a different picture
Medical workers across Hong Kong have been drawing fortune sticks this Lunar New Year to determine who joins the so-called dirty team to care for quarantined Wuhan coronavirus patients " but staff have criticised the practice and other operational issues.
The city's already overcrowded public hospitals are coming under increasing pressure having had eight confirmed cases of the new coronavirus " which causes pneumonia and has killed 82 people in mainland China " amid the winter flu season.
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While the Hospital Authority, which operates 43 public institutions, has stressed the situation is under control, frontline medical workers paint a different picture.
Dr Peter Wong (not his real name), who picks his fortune stick soon, said each unit had it own drawing policy, resulting in little fairness or transparency.
Senior staff in some units would not even be required to draw a fortune stick, he said. Others restricted the pool to those who had already been exposed to suspected cases of the virus.
Wong said he and his colleagues had been put under intense pressure with the emergence of the new virus, which surfaced in Wuhan at the end of December, because every suspected patient had to be examined thoroughly.
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Worse still, because Hong Kong was in the middle of its flu season the workload had increased and doctors were being put to the test with many borderline cases, he said.
"It normally takes just about 10 to 15 minutes to handle a flu patient before deciding whether he or she has to be hospitalised," he said. "At the same time, (we still have to deal) with people having strokes and those with heart failure are still experiencing heart failure."
Nurse Edward Cheung has for now decided not to worry his elderly patients by telling them he will soon start work at an isolation ward for coronavirus patients.
"I haven't told them yet," said Cheung (not his real name), who currently works in a general ward. "My mother asked me if there were such patients in my hospital but she didn't ask further. I guess I will tell them when it's my turn to work in the isolation wards."
Cheung said every nurse and doctor in the internal medicine department needed to take a turn in the isolation wards. Management had already decided on the order and his turn could come within weeks.
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But he said he wanted his rotation to start sooner because he felt unprotected wearing only a mask and not full-body protective gear.
Last week, a patient whom Cheung had contact with was quarantined.
"This is highly problematic. I have had contact with him … There were many other patients in his ward. Should we all be quarantined?" he asked.
They were not, and there were 10 to 20 people in that ward, he added.
The supply of protective gear and masks was also a concern.
A nurse in a Kowloon hospital said she saw a colleague being told off for wearing an N95 mask, which offers more protection than a normal version.
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"(She was told) if you wear them now, it will stoke fear among people who come to visit their relatives," the nurse said.
The masks had also been locked up, she claimed, adding that a clerical worker said they had been rationed. "Why are they rationed, and not used when necessary?" she said.
The authority has said there are enough stocks of masks in public hospitals for at least three months.
Additional reporting by Sum Lok-kei
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