Your front page report on May 17 on the Hospital Authority's inability to afford more liver transplants (at $1.2 million a piece) at Queen Mary Hospital highlighted the issue of priority setting (or more emotively, rationing) in the provision of medical services by governments all over the world.
With the rapid advancement in medical technology, there are practically no limits to what doctors can offer to treat diseases - if given an unlimited budget.
However, one must realise that no government on earth can afford to provide the best possible medical services for all its people for free, although no vote-conscious politician would ever want to admit that in public.
Somehow, each society must draw up a list of its priorities in the provision of medical services. Such a list cannot be drawn by doctors alone, but rather by the society as a whole.
The medical profession is only there to advise whether any given form of medical treatment is efficient and cost-effective.
Society at large must decide what sort of medical services it can afford and what its priorities will be, after taking into consideration such issues as human dignity, community values and fair use of resources.