Chest-pain congress 'shows HK's heart in right place'

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau on Friday said that hosting a national medical conference in Hong Kong for the first time held great significance for the city. He made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 15th China Chest Pain Centers Congress at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. “This is the first time that a China national medical conference is being held in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region," Lo said. "Under the constitutional advantage of ‘one country, two systems’, Hong Kong has always served as a gateway for interchange between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world. “As an international hub for medical innovation and high-level talents, Hong Kong serves as the ideal platform to facilitate international participation in these national conferences for mutual benefits.” Lo said chest pain is the most common symptom of acute cardiovascular diseases. Chest pain centres aim to build a green channel for rapid diagnosis and treatment to shorten the interval between when chest pain hits and when the person is treated in order to reduce his or her risks of death, he said. The chest pain centre at Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong's first, has achieved remarkable results since obtaining national accreditation in May, Lo said, with the median time from a patient's arrival to restoring cardiac blood flow reduced by nearly half – from 105 to 53 minutes. With the Prince of Wales Hospital being the location of the SAR’s second national-standard chest pain centre, the Hospital Authority, he added, will study the possible introduction of artificial intelligence programmes to chest pain centres. Edited by Robert Kemp