Australian Doctor Recruitment 'sees Good Response'

A Chinese University professor, Bryan Yan, says the Hospital Authority had a very positive response to its efforts to find medical students and professionals from Australia to come and work in Hong Kong.

The Hospital Authority says it has given 45 conditional offers to medical students, or practising doctors, in Australia. It said its two-day recruitment event in Sydney last week attracted more than 200 participants.

Yan, who is also a doctor and a former student in Australia, said many of those who had attended had ties to the SAR.

"I think a lot of them have strong links in Hong Kong, and a lot of them had planned or wanted to come to Kong Kong and it is a good opportunity for us to explain, to allay a lot of the concerns they had about the transition because it is not easy transitioning from one country to another country," he said.

Yan said the main concerns had been about training and the conversion, and whether they would be recognised. He said there had also been questions about the specialist pathway passed by Legco in 2021.

The new pathway for specialists was introduced as the government seeks to alleviate a shortage of manpower in the SAR's medical sector, especially in public hospitals. The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine is tasked with checking whether qualifications obtained overseas are equivalent to those offered by Hong Kong's medical schools.

Yan said about 90 percent were originally from Hong Kong but there were a few, who were non-Chinese and not Hong Kong residents. He said most had gone to Australia for an education and were looking for a path back home.

In April, some 300 doctors and medical students attended a similar recruitment drive in the UK.