A major challenge chief executive-elect Leung Chun-ying faces on taking office is improving Hong Kong's hospital system. The medical sector is intended to be one of the city's pillar industries. But hospitals face a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses. Patients must endure dangerously long delays in receiving medical attention, while allocating resources between public and private hospitals has been a perennial problem. In this SCMP debate, we look at the city's hospitals and also call on experts from Singapore's and Taiwan's medical communities to see how they have addressed these pressing issues
SingHealth Group
Professor Ivy Ng, chief executive officer
How does the government address the imbalance between the public and private hospital sectors? How does the private market contribute to easing the pressure on the public sector?
Private and public health care complement each other. With a mix of 80 per cent public and 20 per cent private in Singapore's health care system, our public sector leads the way in terms of how health care is delivered, because almost all doctors and nurses in the private sector were trained within the public health care system. Training of other health care staff and research are largely done in the public sector.
While the public sector ensures delivery of excellent standards of health care service to Singaporeans in an accessible and affordable way, the private sector caters to a lower volume of patients and has more capacity for overseas patients.
Recently, the private sector has also been tasked to help with some subsidised patient load, since they have spare capacity. This is a win-win partnership for both sectors.