Disclosing medical blunders is ‘Hong Kong standard’ of doing things: head of HKU-Shenzhen Hospital champions transparency
- Professor Lo Chung-mau hopes how his hospital dealt with the death of a newborn baby could spark reforms in mainland medical system
- He says even officials had reservations about going public with case but it was responsibility of hospital to do so
The head of a Shenzhen hospital run by the University of Hong Kong has said the first fatal medical blunder under his leadership was dealt with transparently and in line with the “Hong Kong standard” when compared with other mainland hospitals.
Professor Lo Chung-mau said he hoped the handling of the incident by HKU-Shenzhen Hospital in Futian could set an example on how to deal with mishaps and eventually lead to reforms in the mainland’s medical system, where cover-ups and disputes were commonplace.
On December 16, the hospital released a statement about an incident in July in which a newborn baby died due to a brain injury and failure of the central nervous system.
It apologised for the incident and said those involved would be held responsible for the professional mistake, stressing the hospital was willing to tackle the matter and in talks with the parents over compensation.
“This way of handling a medical blunder is very different from other mainland hospitals where the system to report a medical blunder is not comprehensive and the culture is very different,” Lo, a liver transplant expert, said in an interview with the Post.