The Hospital Authority (HA) said it would continue to encourage a wider range of people to learn first aid and emergency medicine at its dedicated Accident and Emergency training centre. The HA said the centre in Wan Chai, which was established 30 years ago, puts on compulsory sessions for medical professionals, but also offers courses for the general public. Dr Axel Siu, medical director of the centre, said about 80 percent of the people receiving courses at the centre were medical professionals from public hospitals and he aims to encourage different people from society to take the courses. "We will try to evaluate regularly, such that we will incorporate, for example, the need of the general public and also the community, so that we can maximise the benefits of training," he said. "We find that there is some need in the community, especially for the carers, so that we liaise with our community partners to design this kind of the first aid course, especially related to the domestic accidents. We tailor make this kind of training with our community partners." About 7,800 people took courses at the training centre last year, down from 12,000 people during the 2018-19 time frame. Dr Siu said it may take a few years for the numbers to reach those seen during the pre-pandemic period. "There are some changes in terms of the requirement of infection control, so we cannot just jump back to the initial, to what we did before Covid," he said. "It will take time, but we expect that we can gradually, in a few years... get back to our normal number of courses and participants." The HA said it would incorporate virtual reality technology into courses in the future, to simulate disasters and large-scale incidents, such as aviation accidents, explosions and fires.
