- Some 32 patients have tried the service launched last month as non-emergency appointments were mostly cancelled amid pandemic
- But Dr Peter Ku says it is too early to say whether teleconferencing will help in solving the problem of a long waiting period to get medical attention
Kwok Hiu-tung, a 25-year-old woman, had undergone a cleft lip surgery in a public hospital in Hong Kong in January. She was worried the worsening pandemic would delay her follow-up consultations.
But like some other patients, she found a way out in telemedicine.
"The wound around my lips has been itchy and sometimes it turns red," she told her attending doctor through an online consultation, "but I don't have any other problems. I feel nice overall."
Sitting at the hospital with his team, Dr Peter Ku Ka-ming answered all her queries through the laptop screen arranged by technicians.
"It is normal to feel a bit itchy, especially when the wound is healing, but try not to scratch it. When blood vessels grow, it is normal for the area to become red as well," the doctor explained, asking for a closer look of her lips.
Hiu-tung was one of the first 20 patients selected by the ear, nose, and throat division in the Kowloon East cluster of the city's public health care system who could meet their doctors through videoconferencing with the software Zoom.
Hospitals adopted the measure in March as non-emergency appointments were mostly cancelled amid the pandemic. Up to 6,000 appointments for the ear, nose, and throat department were cancelled in two months.
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The Hospital Authority has also reduced non-emergency and essential services since February, including postponing surgeries, regular checks, and general outpatient check-ups, since more resources had to be diverted to handle the pandemic. The authority warned more services might have to be cut if the pandemic continued.
"I was worried to go to the hospital for a check-up because of the high risks of acquiring the viral infection," Hiu-tung said.
"Meeting the doctor online allowed me to clear my doubts."
Dr Ku, chief of service of the ear, nose, and throat departments at the United Christian and Tseung Kwan O hospitals, said the new service enabled them to connect with patients at this critical time.
"Patients who require limited internal inspections, or those whose wounds can be observed externally, are our targeted groups," Ku said. "This new way of consultation helps us understand our patients' latest symptoms, if there are any, when we are unable to meet them in person."
But he said it was still early to conclude whether teleconferencing could help in solving the problem of a long waiting period to get medical attention.
"For those who have symptoms and require further check-ups, we will still ask them to come to the hospitals," Ku said, adding that the Medical Council had issued guidelines to hospitals to notify patients about the limitations of teleconsultation.
"Given the tight manpower, we are trying our best to provide more services. In the last month, we arranged three sessions in each of which we could separately talk to four to five patients," he said.
Unlike the US and mainland China, which have been using telemedicine to screen and treat patients for the coronavirus, Hong Kong has started the services for general consultation only.
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Apart from ear, nose, and throat division, the services have been expanded to divisions such as psychiatry, anaesthesia, and liver diseases. A total of 32 patients have tried the new service, said Dr Cheung Hung-kai, the authority's coordinator for Kowloon East Cluster.
The services are free of charge and are not being videographed due to privacy concerns, but are still considered a useful method of formal consultation.
Doctors have to register the medical records after each session, and patients who need medication will be given prescriptions. But they will have to come to the hospitals to collect medicines.
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