Caritas Medical Centre
| Caritas Medical Centre | |
|---|---|
| Hospital Authority and Caritas Hong Kong | |
|
Jockey Club Wai Oi Block, Caritas Medical Centre | |
  | |
| Geography | |
| Location | Cheung Sha Wan, Hong Kong |
| Coordinates | 22°20′28″N 114°09′10″E / 22.3411111°N 114.1527778°ECoordinates: 22°20′28″N 114°09′10″E / 22.3411111°N 114.1527778°E |
| Organisation | |
| Funding | Public hospital |
| Hospital type | General |
| Network | Kowloon West Cluster |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | Yes Accident & Emergency |
| History | |
| Founded | 17 December 1964 |
| Links | |
| Lists | Hospitals in Hong Kong |
Caritas Medical Centre (Chinese: 明愛醫院) is a hospital in Cheung Sha Wan, New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is the major hospital in Sham Shui Po District and managed by the Hospital Authority and Caritas Hong Kong.
History
Caritas Medical Centre was founded by Caritas Hong Kong and opened by the Hong Kong Governor, David Trench, on 17 December 1964.[1]
The centre is now an acute general hospital with around 1,100 beds situated in Shamshuipo. It provides a full range of acute and rehabilitation care, ambulatory and community medical services, including a 24-hour accident and emergency service, general outpatient service, and inpatient and outpatient specialist services in a one-stop setting - so called single episode care. The hospital maintains close ties with its parent organisation, Caritas-Hong Kong, and a strong Catholic culture under the motto "Love in the Service of Hope".
Services
The hospital has well-developed supporting services, including Pathology, Radiology, Anaesthesiology and Allied Health services. Other ambulatory and outreach community services include Geriatric Day Hospital and Community Geriatric Assessment Team, Community Nursing service, and Palliative Home Care service. The services provided reflect the needs of the population served - ageing, low income, new immigrants.
Caritas Medical Centre is the referral centre of the Kowloon West Cluster of the Hospital Authority in Eye service serving the entire Kowloon west region. The Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Service for Kowloon West Cluster is also based at Caritas Medical Centre. The Palliative Care Unit (inpatient and home care team) serves patients referred from hospitals of the Kowloon West Cluster. The hospital runs the largest Developmental Disabilities Unit (Project Sunshine) for the entire territory of Hong Kong, to provide treatment, training and daily care for severely mentally handicapped patients under the age of 16 in a home-like setting. Despite not being a university hospital, it does provide clinical training for medical and nursing students from the three local universities.
Future development
To meet the ever increasing demand and expectation in medical services, Caritas Medical Centre has started a major re-development project which has its phase I completed in 2002 - a 14-storey new block, Wai Shun Block, for accommodating all acute services. Planning for re-development of the rest of the facilities of the hospital (phase II - ambulatory, rehabilitation and supporting services) has already started, with completion date planned in 2013.
Scandals at the hospital
The hospital has been involved in serious governance issues, including the unnecessary death of a patient on its doorstep[2] and the apparent inside-job theft of a computer disc containing sensitive data for thousands of patients.[3]
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Caritas Medical Centre. |
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