Chief Executive of the Hospital Authority Libby Lee on Sunday said the number of public hospital emergency room visits dropped by 12 percent in the first week of this year following reforms to the city's healthcare service fees.

The number of patients triaged as critical and emergency was similar compared with the same period last year, but hospitals saw an 18 percent drop in patients without urgent medical needs, she said.

The fee reforms, which took effect on New Year's Day, include a rise in the accident and emergency service fee from HK$180 to HK$400, but the fee will be waived for critical or emergency cases.

Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme, Lee said the fall in emergency room visits was within the authority’s expectations, adding that frontline medics found the hospital operations smooth.

“They do not actually need to quite explain to patients about the fees and charges because we have a separate team to do so,” Lee said.

“At the current moment, because it's only 10 days, they feel (fewer patients) are coming to the A&E, but I guess we need a longer time to see whether the impact is real or sustainable.”

Meanwhile, Lee said the HA has approved more than 55,000 medical fee waiver applications since the reform was launched.

She added the HA has to review applicants’ assets and income as it is responsible for the use of public money.

"For the waiver, it is not a welfare. It is actually an assistance to the patients who are underprivileged with financial difficulty. So there's a stringent process to see whether they really fulfilled certain criteria in order to have this kind of assistance,” she said.

“Having said that, we understand that the application could be very troublesome, but we try to streamline the whole process to make it easier.

“For example, if one of the family members has medical waivers, they do not need to submit all those documents because we have the record already. So we try to enhance our operation side to make all the applications much easier and documents requirement less."