HONG KONG: The Hospital Authority is being urged to address the issue of overtime imposed on nurses, after a Chinese newspaper reported Queen Mary Hospital (QMH) was forced to cancel 30 surgeries Wednesday because half of its surgical nurses took sick leave.

According to Apple Daily, the nurses went on sick leave en masse because they were being required to work overtime almost daily over the past one to two months. The hospital is trying to clear a long waiting list for non-emergency operations. And the problem has been compounded by the resignation of 11 surgical nurses.

Legislator Joseph Lee Kok-long, of the medical service constituency, said that the hospital used to have the nurses work on one minor surgery, such as an appendectomy, before a five-to-eight-hour major surgery so they could complete a day's work at 5 pm. But recently, the hospital squeezed several minor surgeries into the morning and major surgery didn't start until after noon.

This means the nurses had to work two to four hours extra. Some nurses had accumulated more than 200 hours of overtime, Lee told media yesterday.

The nurses had complained to the hospital management many times but no remedial action was taken, he said.

"It seemed that if we didn't do this, the management wouldn't realize how serious the manpower shortage is," an unidentified nurse told Cable TV Friday.

A QMH spokesperson confirmed Friday that 16 surgical nurses took sick leaves Wednesday and 10 on Thursday. All but one had resumed work Friday.

The hospital also promised to adjust the schedules for surgical nurses to improve the arrangement.

Under Secretary for Food and Health Gabriel Matthew Leung Friday urged the hospital management to pay attention to the frontline workers' needs.

"I hope the hospital management can communicate with their frontline workers and understand what they really need," he said.

He said he believes the medical personnel would put the patients' interests at the forefront.

To address the nursing shortage, the Hospital Authority can deploy people from other hospitals "at the cluster level", he said.

Hong Kong's public hospitals are divided into seven hospital clusters. Queen Mary Hospital belongs to the Hong Kong West Cluster.

Nursing shortages have remained a chronic issue for public hospitals in Hong Kong. The work load is heavy and pay is lower compared with private hospitals. The Hospital Authority has 300-400 nursing vacancies to fill, especially intensive care unit nurses, surgical nurses and midwives.

China Daily

(HK Edition 12/05/2009 page4)