Amy Wu, in her column ("Health benefits", January 24) extols the value and the standard of the private health care system in Hong Kong, going as far as to say that she was "fortunate to have got sick in Hong Kong".
I agree, but I would also extol the value and the standards of our public health care system.
I can write as a doctor who worked for many years in public hospitals; as a justice of the peace whose duties include unannounced hospital visits; and finally as a recipient of Hong Kong's health care. It never even crossed my mind to go anywhere else when I needed "cold" abdominal surgery, and the care when I subsequently broke my leg was first class. If you are a permanent resident in Hong Kong, this is at minimal cost and offers amazing value.
Of course, there are challenges and these are shared by many countries - financing health care for an ageing population, increasing chronic diseases which are expensive to treat, manpower shortages, a disproportionate emphasis on cure rather than on prevention, and things sometimes do go wrong, as anywhere.
But Hong Kong's health statistics are among the best in the world, whether it be infant mortality, life expectancy or our lowered smoking rates. Of this we should be truly thankful.
Dr Judith Mackay, Clear Water Bay