'Local Doctors' Protectionism To Blame For Shortage'

Liberal Party lawmaker Tommy Cheung has blamed Hong Kong's acute shortage of doctors on what he calls the "protectionist attitude" of local doctors and the Medical Council.

Speaking on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong, Cheung, who's also an executive councillor, said there were two doctors per 1,000 people in Hong Kong in 2018 – compared to 2.4 per thousand in Singapore, and short of the 3.4-per-thousand average of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) member countries.

He said fewer than half of the city's doctors work in the public medical system, which provides around nine-tenths of in-patient services.

"That is to say, we have one doctor for 900 Hong Kong people who need public healthcare," Cheung said. "Insufficient manpower is putting tremendous stress on doctors and our healthcare, and with ageing population, the queuing time for public medical services is extremely long."

Cheung said the Department of Health and frontline staff should be commended for "holding the fort" during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but he was pained by daily news report of the stress they were under.

He said the "protectionist attitude" of the Medical Council and local doctors is the main reason for the shortages.

"The failure to reform the Medical Council – the body that licenses local doctors – boils down to one thing: doctors’ self-interests," he said.

"They are aware that our public hospitals are insufficiently staffed, yet they have been barring the import passage of doctors to contrive a situation of 'lack-of-supply' to keep their level of consultation fees up, and with all kinds of means to keep competition out."

He called on Hong Kong to adopt policies used in Singapore and Australia, which uses supervision-based systems to assess doctors rather than an entrance exam.

"The consideration on hand is not on the discussion of exemption of exams, but on how to develop a mechanism to admit doctors and specialists trained overseas to practice in Hong Kong with stringent quality assurance – as quality is definitely our primary concern," Cheung said.

He also said there were a lot of talented doctors on the mainland.

"Demonising mainland-trained doctors is [an] old tale from a quarter of [a] century ago," he said. "Ridiculing China-trained practitioners is shutting out not only the mainlanders, but the whole world's pool of medical talents."