Elective Cataract Surgery


The choice and the timing of the surgery are worked out together by the patient and doctor after the evaluation of the clinical conditions. Patients are treated based on the seriousness of their illness and not only in the order of when they were added to the list.

As at 31 December 2022, there were 69,415 cataract surgery bookings in Eye Specialty with the waitlist per cluster as follows:

Cluster Hong Kong East Hong Kong West Kowloon Central Kowloon East Kowloon West New Territories East New Territories West
Waitlist
8,230
4,075
15,780
7,922
12,507
8,464
12,437

The waiting time for patients with cataract surgeries performed in the past 12 months (1 Jan 2022 – 31 Dec 2022) was as follows :

Cluster Hong Kong East Hong Kong West Kowloon Central Kowloon East Kowloon West New Territories East New Territories West
Number of Surgery Performed
2,016
2,456
4,924
2,438
1,673
4,292
2,781
Median Waiting Time* (month)
15
12
11
16
13
20
11
90th Percentile Waiting Time* (month)
37
18
37
22
47
25
55

(For reference only)
Date of Next Update: 28 April 2023

* The median and 90th percentile waiting time implies that half and 90% of the patients with surgeries performed could receive surgeries earlier than the indicated waiting time respectively.