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Construction for Hong Kong's first non-profit private teaching hospital -- the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Medical Centre -- started on Thursday.
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man said he expected the centerwill help ease theburden on public hospitals.
The hospital, located next to the University MTR station,will start services in 2020.
Aiming to serve local middle-class families, the hospital will offer services in an affordable price ranges. Packages will be provided in 70 percent of the services, according to the CUHK.
Starting from the fifth year of its operation, the HK$6.3-billion medical center will take over 17,600 specialist outpatient cases and 6,600 ambulatory surgery cases referred from public hospitals in New Territories East Cluster, such as the Prince of Wales Hospital. This will take up 10 percent of the total designed capacity, according to the CUHK.
Medical costs will remain the same as those in the public hospitals for referred patients, according to the CUHK.
The 14-storey CUHK medical center with a construction area of over 100,000 square meters will provide 619 beds -- 516 for inpatients and 103 day places. In the first year of operation, the hospital will provide 90 inpatient beds. More will come with an annual increase of some 100 beds until 2026, said Ko.
Providing a total of 28 surgery rooms and 16 specialist medical centers, the hospital's clinical services will range from general medicine, general surgery, orthopedics and gynaecology in the first year, said Fung Hong, executive director of the hospital.
The arrangement was made after consideration to the limited number of medical staff, said Fung. He estimated that some 190 doctors and 600 nurses are required to work in full operation.
In the first year of operation, the hospital will recruit 45 doctors and 100 nurses.
Meanwhile, the university hoped to apply their advanced medical findings and technology in the center, said Vice-Chancellor and President of the university Joseph Sung Jao-yiu.
They included liquid biopsy technology, a medical breakthrough by the university’s associate dean of medicine, Dennis Lo Yuk-ming. The technology applies DNA sequencing techniques to early-stage cancer detection as well as NanoKnife surgery to kill cancerous cells.
The hospital applied for government loan of HK$4.033 billion and received HK$1.3 billion donations from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The other HK$1 billion of the budget was covered by the university’s reserve fund and other donations.
The government loan will be interest-free for the first five years. After that, the hospital will make repayments at a floating rate for the next 10 years.
(China Daily)
