960408

British patient

roams HK hospital

for three days

HONG KONG: A British tourist who sparked a police search after being reported missing from a Hong Kong hospital never left the premises, and was found on the roof three days later, a hospital spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 60-ward Queen Elizabeth Hospital is now reviewing security procedures which allowed 40-year-old Stuart Joy to roam the premises for three days without being noticed.

"This is an isolated and very uncommon case," the spokeswoman, who declined to be named, told Reuters. "We have regular patrols of the rooftop and stairwells, but in a 60-ward hospital, it was not easy to find him," she said.

Joy, of Swansea, South Wales, was in the colony to attend an international Rugby Sevens tournament and was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday after an apparent anxiety attack.

The spokeswoman said friends lodged a missing person's report with police after Joy disappeared from his bed two days after admission.

His wallet and passport remained beside his hospital bed.

A security patrol eventually located Joy on Sunday wandering about on the roof of the hospital, wearing pyjamas and clutching a bottle of water, but unable to tell hospital authorities how he got there.

Joy was discharged from the hospital on Sunday but it was not known whether he had continued his planned tour to the holiday resort of Phuket in Thailand or returned to Britain.

Police interviewed the hapless tourist after he was discharged. "He seemed very calm," said an officer with the local district police who said Joy had told him he had felt "very uneasy" about being admitted to an overseas hospital.-Reuter