On contracts, the young practitioners feel that proposed pay cuts are a way of stripping them of job security
When Chau Chi-wai and his wife Vivian Chan - both junior doctors at public hospitals - heard their pay was to be cut, their immediate response was: 'Not us again'.
With a combined income of about $70,000 a month, money is not their biggest concern. Rather it is what they see as the Hospital Authority's repeated attempts to strip doctors of their job security.
'It is a morale issue,' said Dr Chau, a resident doctor at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. 'We think they are targeting contract staff.'
Hospital Authority executives said last week that doctors employed from 1998 would have their monthly allowances cut by 20 per cent, or between $1,000 and $3,000 a month. Nurses and other staff members would also be affected. It is part of a plan to help the authority save $36 million.
Authority executives agreed yesterday to meet the Frontline Doctors Union after it had threatened industrial action in response to the pay cut. Union leaders, who represent contract doctors, said they would hold off on any signature campaign or industrial action for now.