'Harsher punishments over medical incidents needed'
A medical sector lawmaker on Friday called for harsher punishments for senior managers responsible for medical incidents at public hospitals.  The Hospital Authority set up a review committee earlier this month to look at the operations and incident response policies at public hospitals following a series of blunders. Speaking at a Legislative Council panel meeting, lawmaker David Lam, who is one of the committee members, said senior managers should be held accountable. "If it's just about having senior management to come to meet with the press, bow their head, express their concern for the affected families, and deduct some bonus or welfare benefits to the staff concerned, that's not enough. We should not just shift the responsibility to frontline staff," he explained. The review committee will examine existing mechanisms to monitor performance and look at systems to manage risk and accountability, as well as incident response policies at public hospitals. It will submit its recommendations to the authority's governing board within three months.