Wallis Wang

The Hospital Authority has seen another incident where a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling at its Prince of Wales facility on Wednesday.

The incident involving a piece of concrete that was approximately 70 by 50 centimeters occurred in the Prince of Wales Hospital's X-ray department's waiting area on the ground floor of the day treatment block around 6 pm.

In a statement issued yesterday, the authority said no one was injured as the incident occurred during non-office hours and that patient services were not affected.

The hospital immediately cordoned off the area concerned for an urgent inspection and maintenance.

"After preliminary investigation, the incident was fond not to have involved structural safety issues. It is suspected that the ceiling concrete spalling was caused by water seepage of the outdoor flower trough located at the upper floor of the area concerned," it said.

Before the accident occurred, the hospital had already inspected the area in March and found no abnormalities, the authority said, adding the hospital has reported the case to the HA head office via the advance incident reporting system.

"The hospital will step up inspections of flower troughs to ensure there is no stagnant water and will strengthen inspections of the area concerned to ensure safety," it said.

Similar incidents had happened at various public hospitals and the government set up a review committee on medical equipment and facility maintenance in March.

The committee said in June that more than 300 buildings managed by the Hospital Authority were built more than 30 years ago and the facilities in the public hospitals had been heavily used due to increasing demand for services.

The authority should establish rolling inspection and maintenance programs for buildings according to the buildings' age, usage and uniqueness.

It should also use new technologies to keep a comprehensive record of the situation with building inspections and maintenance, evaluate building conditions and find out the root cause of water leakage or seepage in public hospitals, the committee said.

Biomedical engineering staff, it said, should supervise the maintenance process of medical equipment on-site and digitalize the work processes of maintenance services.

Another hospital hit by concrete spalling