'Low Social Status Will Stop Doctors Returning To HK'

A former Medical Association president says he doubts any Hongkongers who trained overseas as doctors would want to come back and work in the SAR under a new government policy, saying the social status of doctors has diminished in light of the recent political reform.

David Fang told an RTHK programme on Friday that he welcomes the government’s proposal to allow non-locally trained doctors to practise in the territory without passing Hong Kong professional exams, but said the scheme’s attractiveness would be “extremely limited”.

“Our functional constituency seat in the legislature will be scrapped. Our 30 seats in the [chief executive] election committee has been cancelled, and will be incorporated with the health services sector, while the 30 seats for Chinese medicine practitioners will remain. Isn’t that lowering doctors’ social status?” Fang questioned.

He said the changes have hurt morale and the profession’s autonomy.

But Hospital Authority chief executive Tony Ko said on the same programme that he believes the policy will still attract doctors, because public hospitals are very good training grounds.

He dismissed concerns that recruiting doctors without requiring them to take an entry exam would undermine Hong Kong’s healthcare system, because their superiors will observe their clinical performance.

“They will look at how the doctors handle the patients, in other words their day-to-day performance,” Ko said.

"Under this scheme, even if a doctor is already a specialist overseas, his credentials must be recognised by the Hong Kong authorities. Plus, he still has to work in the public healthcare system for five years. Under such a stringent mechanism where their performance will be closely monitored, I think the assessment will definitely be better than a single exam."

A bill to enable the overseas doctors plan will be tabled to Legco next week.