Hong Kong doctors threaten Occupy Central-style sit-in at Queen Elizabeth Hospital over pay claim
Public hospital medics plan sit-in to step up fight for 3pc increase, in line with top civil servants, as authority urges calm and promises more talks
Senior doctors at public hospitals are threatening a mass sit-in in their fight for an extra 3 per cent pay rise from the Hospital Authority - backdated for one year.
The Public Doctors' Association is calling on members to put on their uniforms and assemble at the main lobby of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Wednesday afternoon for the 90-minute protest.
It will be the largest demonstration by doctors since 2007, when 1,300 medics swamped the Kowloon hospital to demand a pay increase.
Undersecretary for food and health, Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee, yesterday expressed concern over the situation, while the authority called for calm and promised more negotiations with doctors.
The latest dispute centres on a government decision earlier this year to offer senior civil servants an extra 3 per cent pay rise, backdated to last October, to bring their pay levels closer to those in the private market. The move was based on the civil service pay survey conducted every six years.
The association said the some 760 consultants and 1,700 senior medical staff at public hospitals should enjoy the same pay rise, but the authority rejected their demands.
Association chairman Dr Pierre Chan Pui-yin said yesterday: "It has been a practice of the authority in the past 20 years or more to follow the government move [on civil servants] to adjust our pay, whether it be a rise, cut or freeze.