Hong Kong minister promises public report into faulty lifts at Queen Mary Hospital

Hong Kong’s Development Secretary Bernadette Linn Hon-ho has promised a public account of how defective lift installations arose at Queen Mary Hospital’s new clinical block. Linn said the Development Bureau would submit a report to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu within a month. She said the report would address why the problems occurred, when they were identified and why they may not have been detected earlier.

The government would subsequently disclose the report publicly. Twenty-four of the 28 lifts in the new 34-storey block were deemed unfit for use. The defects have delayed full commissioning of the HK$13.5 billion facility by as much as a year and raised questions about project oversight and civil-service accountability.

Linn did not confirm whether she would invoke the Heads of Departments Accountability System, introduced in the previous year’s policy address. She said an initial follow-up investigation had already begun after instructions from the chief executive. The minister said the Development Bureau had not originally been involved in the hospital project, but was now reviewing whether the department under its oversight had properly performed its role at different stages.

The South China Morning Post reported that a chief project manager at the Architectural Services Department, Li Pak-yee, had left her post after overseeing the project. The department denied that she had been forced to resign, saying she had quit for personal reasons after giving three months’ notice. Linn also said the government was reviewing the future of a proposed public-housing project at Fanling Golf Course after deciding not to appeal a ruling that overturned its environmental approval.

The plan involved reclaiming 32 hectares to build 12,000 public-housing units, but Linn said further environmental assessments and the project’s scale and timetable would need to be reconsidered.