Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said on Saturday his bureau was drafting amendments to the Medical Registration Ordinance to address procedural shortcomings in the handling of patients' complaints, as well as other matters. The Health Bureau is expected to submit the proposed changes to the Legislative Council's health panel in February.

The amendments are being drafted following the Medical Council's submission of a review of its complaint mechanism to the government in December. It was initiated after years of delay to an inquiry into an alleged hospital incident in 2009. The disciplinary proceedings were eventually dropped due to the delay.

The incident involved allegations by a mainland couple that a doctor at Baptist Hospital had been too slow to act on warnings from nurses about the condition of their newborn baby, leading to the boy developing cerebral palsy.

Speaking after a radio programme, Professor Lo said the bureau was looking into various factors that might have caused delays in council hearings and would explore different ways to address the matter.

"It [the council] has to make sure of procedural justice, but sometimes there is a delay because of this, allowing sufficient, reasonable time for both sides to provide information," he said.

"One potential delay is in seeking the expert report because all these complaint cases involve medical procedures, and the opinion from an expert in that area, especially for certain complicated medical procedures, requires time."

"We have to look into the detail and address all these pressure points, these delays, so that we'll ensure that similar cases will not happen again," he added.

Lo said the amendments would also include reviewing the composition of council members, the continuing medical education and professional development of doctors, and matters related to non-locally trained doctors.

In commenting on the 2009 incident, Lo said the case was dropped due to judicial concerns that any continuance in hearing the case might lead to unfairness, given the prolonged delay in bringing about a resolution.

He said the council had received more than 8,000 complaints over the past five years and that it was impossible to have all complaints go through hearings, given that some of them were anonymous and about 70 percent of them involved communication issues.

Lo added that the council hoped to make fair and transparent judgments on complaints quickly, with a view to ensuring just resolutions, as prolonged hearings impacted both complainants and complainees.