The Central Government-Aided Emergency Hospital will suspend services from 20 October while it undergoes improvement works expected to finish in the first quarter of 2027, the Hospital Authority says.
Patients booked for CT, MRI or ultrasound examinations will be contacted by their hospital networks about revised dates and locations. Urgent sleep-test cases will be prioritised for testing through those networks; non-urgent patients are to wait until the emergency hospital resumes service. The Authority says patients booked for endoscopy or intraocular injections have already been contacted and arrangements made.
The works will replace ceiling insulation, reinforce and repair heavily used flooring, and include routine air-conditioning maintenance to keep the temperature and humidity needed by precision medical equipment. A backup water tank will also be added to help maintain the supply during an emergency. The Authority says the hospital has operated for more than three years and that hospital facilities generally need maintenance every two to three years.
One patient told HK01 that Queen Elizabeth Hospital initially told her she would have to wait until 2030 for an MRI appointment. In mid-August, she went to the hospital to arrange the scan. On 22 September, the hospital offered her a transfer to the emergency hospital to shorten the wait, and she agreed.
After more than two weeks without confirmation, she made enquiries and learned that the emergency hospital would close for works. She said she was told to return to Queen Elizabeth Hospital to rejoin its queue, and that her original booking had been cancelled before the transfer was confirmed. Her new wait was again around 2030, she told HK01.
She described the process as confusing and said patients had to make repeated enquiries between the hospitals. She told Ming Pao she planned to pay privately for the MRI, but said the disruption had not greatly affected her because it was a routine scan.
The Hospital Authority says it will send patients updates through the HA Go app; appointment records in the app show the latest arrangements.