Senior staff to work on frontline

Middle-ranking and senior staff will have to work on the frontlines at Tuen Mun Hospital, which lost 20 percent of its physicians in 2010, said Secretary for Food and Health York Chow during a radio show Friday morning.

He said that newly hired physicians in Tuen Mun Hospital are not able to start working until July at the earliest. Public hospitals lost 5-6 percent of medical personnel, as an increasing number of doctors or nurses moved into private practice in the improving economy.

Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association has planned a meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Tuesday with Hospital Authority executives. Medical staff members, including those at Tuen Mun Hospital, are urged to take part in the meeting to voice their concerns.

Manslaughter for killing ex-wife

A man suffering from schizophrenia was convicted of manslaughter in High Court for killing his ex-wife at a light rail station over a money dispute.

The court heard that Lecky Lui Ping-yuen, 44, divorced his wife, Liu Lijian, 39, in 2009. Liu, who had the custody of their two young children, demanded HK$2,000 from the defendant to pay for the children's tutorial lesson on Sept 20, 2009. Lui stabbed his ex-wife with a knife on the platform of the light rail's Affluence Station in Tuen Mun, two days later. She died of massive blood loss.

The prosecution accused Lui of murder and earlier rejected his plea to the lesser manslaughter charge.

But Judge Louis Tong Po-sun instructed the jury that Lui can't be convicted of murder because of his mental condition.

Sentencing was adjourned, pending psychiatric reports.

Drill simulating MTR disruption

Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) held a large-scale drill Friday to simulate the power failure at Yau Ma Tei Station on Oct 21, 2010, which disrupted Tsuen Wan Line service for three hours during the morning rush hours.

Personnel of the Transport Department, Fire Services Department and police as well as 500 citizens took part in the early morning drill. The drill simulated a situation in which two passengers were injured during the evacuation.

Taking lessons from the chaos in 2010, MTRC said it has established a 60-strong contingency team and will set up large information boards to direct traffic. It will also install LCD displays at entrances to keep passengers informed of accidents and distribute leaflets to tell people where to find feeder buses.

Local resident missing in NZ

The Chinese Embassy in New Zealand has received a report of a Hong Kong citizen who went missing in the Christchurch quake.

Wang Xin, spokesman of the embassy, said 26 mainland Chinese are missing.

The death toll of the Christchurch earthquake has climbed to 113.

Rodent problem improves slightly

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced Friday that the rodent infestation rate for the second half of 2010 had dropped to 1.7 percent, compared with 3.6 percent in the same period of 2009.

The overall rate for 2010 fell to 1.5 percent from 6.1 percent in 2009, indicating that rodent infestation in public areas in the city was generally under control.

China Daily

(HK Edition 02/26/2011 page1)