The Health Sector Division provides a wide spectrum of engineering support mainly to the Hospital Authority, the Department of Health, the Prince Philips Dental Hospital and the Government Laboratory.

During the year, the division provided operation and maintenance services for electrical, mechanical and air-conditioning systems in public hospitals, clinics, laboratories and laundries. It also provided advisory services on procuring hospital equipment, improvement and replacement of engineering systems and equipment, and on environmental issues such as the prevention of Legionnaires' Disease, indoor air quality control, pathological waste disposal and incineration, as well as energy conservation.

It supervised contractors in the installation, maintenance and improvement of building services installations such as fire alarms, lifts and escalators, towngas and liquefied petroleum gas installations. The medical electronics specialists of the division provided professional advice on and support in biomedical and scientific equipment procurement and maintenance, and monitored suppliers' performance. They also conducted equipment performance evaluations, biomedical equipment safety management as well as incident investigations.

During 1997/98 the division set up a new sub-division to provide dedicated building services to customers in the health care sector. In addition to bringing in more multi-disciplinary staff to serve customers better, a number of service improvement measures were also started. These included service reliability improvements, a capital equipment replacement programme and medical equipment replacement programme, professional support to clients on the "millennium bug" problem, and periodic inspection, testing and certification of fixed electrical installations.

Communication with clients also improved. In addition to the use of newsletters, booklets, seminars, electronic homepages and e-mail, two-way communication with clients was enhanced by introducing more regular meetings with senior staff.

To keep staff update with the latest technology, a number of employees underwent training in clinical engineering, X-ray equipment, dental units, medical gas pipeline systems and biomedical equipment maintenance.