A 67-year-old patient was transferred from the Greater Bay Area (GBA) to Tuen Mun Hospital on Friday, the first case arranged under a cross-boundary ambulance transfer scheme.
The one-year pilot scheme for direct cross-boundary ambulance transfer was launched in November last year, allowing patients in the GBA to be conveyed to designated hospitals in the SAR directly without the need to be handed over to local health authorities at boundary control points.
The Hospital Authority said its major incident control centre received a request for a patient transfer from the Shenzhen Hospital of the University of Hong Kong on Thursday.
It said the patient was admitted to the hospital in the GBA on Tuesday due to respiratory failure and had to be put on a ventilator.
Anne Lee, deputy hospital chief executive of the Shenzhen Hospital, said the patient’s condition improved and his family hoped he could be treated in Hong Kong.
“Although the patient is still in a serious condition, we think he is stable enough for a safe transfer,” she told reporters.
Lee said the man was transferred from the GBA hospital at 11am via the Shenzhen Bay Port, and arrived at Tuen Mun Hospital in about 40 minutes.
She said the process was smooth and the patient had been admitted to a ward.
Asked about the criteria for patients to be transferred to Hong Kong, she said authorities are always willing to help patients in need.
“Not only patients using a ventilator are suitable for a transfer. If patients were involved in a traffic accident on the mainland, and have suffered fractures, they would not be able to use public transport to cross the border,” she said.
But Lee stressed that if patients were able to make use of public transportation or could make arrangements themselves, they should not use this cross-boundary ambulance service.
Zonia Pingree
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