My Take | Hong Kong needs to open the door to foreign doctors

Hong Kong is short of at least 250 doctors and 700 nurses at its public hospitals. There are only two ways to address the problem of manpower shortage: train more of them locally or import more of them from overseas. The first solution is less controversial. Plans are afoot to increase the annual intake of students at the two local medical schools, from 250 to 470, by the end of this decade. Local nursing schools will also have to increase intakes substantially. But this alone will not resolve the problem.

Unfortunately, the intransigence of the medical community has made any consensus on the second solution impossible. They claim the import of foreign doctors would undermine professional standards and welfare of patients. Critics look on their resistance more as trade protectionism, to shield their highly lucrative and lightly regulated practices from outside competition.

A more popular government might have been able to rally public support. But the current government, unfortunately, has little credibility. Officials have also upset vested interests within the medical sector by trying to reform the powerful Medical Council, which also has the power to license foreign doctors.