Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Hospital began a phased opening starting Thursday, with the launch of its family medicine integrated centre and additional support measures to assist patients during the transition. The new facility is set to become the city’s largest public hospital, eventually replacing services currently provided by Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The family medicine centre, located within the specialist outpatient clinic block, will initially serve about 350 outpatients daily. This includes 100 existing public hospital patients and 250 new appointments available to the public. The centre is designed to manage patients with mild illnesses such as influenza and gastroenteritis, as well as individuals with episodic or chronic conditions. It will also provide vaccinations, general nursing care, and operate a dedicated pharmacy independently.
To ease the transition, health authorities have deployed on-site staff wearing blue vests at the hospital lobby and clinical departments to assist patients. A seven-day-a-week hotline has also been established to address queries related to patient appointments and transportation. Additionally, a task force has been mobilized to proactively contact patients regarding the new service arrangements.
The hospital will continue to expand its services over the coming months. Specialist outpatient clinics and blood-taking services equipped with advanced automation are scheduled to commence operations later in October. The blood collection station will introduce an automatic specimen transport system, designed to reduce blood-taking time to under five minutes.
November will see the opening of the clinical oncology day centre, further broadening the hospital’s scope of care. Kai Tak Hospital’s pharmacy, the largest in the city with 21 counters, plans to implement an automated medication dispensing system by the first quarter of 2027. This upgrade is expected to reduce average waiting times for medication to approximately 30 minutes.
Kai Tak Hospital is a large-scale facility spanning five blocks and encompassing 500,000 square metres of space. It has 2,400 beds and 37 operating theatres. The first phase includes the specialist outpatient and oncology blocks, with the remaining blocks—covering acute services, administrative support, and education and training—set to open in 2028. Major clinical services such as inpatient care, surgery, and accident and emergency care are slated to commence in this second phase.
Dr. Eric Cheung Fuk-chi, cluster chief executive of Kowloon Central and Kai Tak Hospital chief executive, emphasized the cautious approach taken to the hospital’s opening, highlighting the scale of the relocation as the largest in Hong Kong’s history. He noted that a gradual rollout is essential to ensure that patient care and service quality remain unaffected during this transition.