The Hospital Authority issued an apology for recent incidents concerning facility maintenance at public hospitals, after a case of falling concrete at Kwai Chung Hospital was reported early this morning.

The incident happened at about 3:30am inside a consultation room of a child and adolescent psychiatric ward. No one was injured in the incident, but some furniture and computer equipment were damaged.

The authority explained that it was one of the staff who discovered that part of the suspended ceiling had fallen and some fragments of concrete were scattered on the ground.

The hospital then arranged engineers to inspect and repair the area concerned and further inspections were carried out in other rooms nearby.

The authority’s chief executive Dr Tony Ko told reporters at a media session this afternoon that the authority is highly concerned about the incidents and had immediately conducted investigations.

Because the safety of patients and staff is vitally important, he stressed that the authority has set up a committee to review the maintenance of medical equipment and facilities in all public hospitals.

A similar incident happened inside a Castle Peak Hospital ward a few months ago.

Hospital Authority Director (Strategy & Planning) Dr Ching Wai-kuen pointed out that a one-month inspection exercise for all the hospitals under the management of the seven clusters started yesterday.

“Our local facilities management colleagues will (perform the) inspection of facilities and medical equipment based on a risk stratified structure.

“Those areas which have been associated with previous water seepage, or concrete problems, or have a track record of defects, will be inspected first and priority will be given to these categories of equipment and facilities.

“For the situation of Kwai Chung Hospital, actually we had (already) planned to start (the inspections). The original plan was to start the inspections today, but the incident occurred before that.”