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over the past few years.
Specifically, statistics released by the Hospital Authority (HA) re-
vealed that the average inpatient bed occupancy rates of all hospitals un-
der HA during 10 days ended 17th February, from 2014 to 2016 were 105%, 101%
and 110% respectively (Table 3). It should take no medical expertise to com-
prehend that an occupancy rate over 100% for public hospitals is certainly
undesirable from the perspective of public health.
Table 3. Medical inpatient bed occupancy rate at midnight
Source: Hospital Authority.
To put the chronic shortage of hospital capacity for Hong Kong
in the regional perspective, the bed occupancy rates for the busiest pub-
lic hospital in Singapore during the week of March 13, 2016 averaged to be
96.4%, with other hospitals in the city-state averaging around 85% (Figure
20). In comparison, not even a single day during the whole month ended 31
March, 2016 had Hong Kong’s public hospitals witnessed an occupancy rate
lower than 97%, and the average figure for the month of March was a stag-
gering 108% (Figure 21).
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