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Calls to include coronavirus in Employees’ Compensation Ordinance

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One of Hong Kong’s top microbiologists, Ho Pak-leung, has called for the city’s government to include the novel coronavirus – dubbed Convid-19 by the WHO – as an occupational sickness covered by the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance, allowing compensation for medical workers by law should they contract the virus.

Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen supported Ho’s call, adding that he would relay the message to the health secretary, Sophia Chan Siu-chee, and labour and welfare chief Law Chi-kwong, it was reported in The Standard.

Ho cited cases during the 2003 SARS outbreak, when healthcare workers received compensation only on compassionate grounds. SARS was included as an occupational sickness covered by the ordinance two years after the epidemic.

Frontline medical workers were among the first and worst hit by the SARS outbreak, which claimed 299 lives in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, despite medical workers having voted to end their strike on, nurses have said that they were under pressure to use fewer masks.

A frontline nurse who works in isolation wards at Tuen Mun Hospital reported that guidelines for disease control were unclear at such wards apparently being told by senior hospital staff that N95 protective facial masks were not needed.

“The use of surgical masks surged rapidly recently, and the allocation of masks has to be on a prudent basis in order to ensure sufficient protective equipment for frontline staff,” a spokesman for the hospital responded.

“There are no restrictions on frontline medical workers in terms of the number of masks they use, but we do remind staff to be prudent in their use of protective gear, including surgical masks,” he added.

For more on legal responsibilities for HR during the coronavirus outbreak, check out the upcoming webinar:  A Legal Update for HR and employer obligations in dealing with the novel coronavirus

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