The Hospital Authority has promised that the cost of a pay rise - announced yesterday - for frontline public hospital doctors from October will not be passed on to patients.
Authority chairman Anthony Wu Ting-yuk said he expected the pay rise - to cost an extra HK$355 million a year - would boost morale and improve services.
The authority yesterday announced the new pay structure for about 2,000 doctors who joined after April 2000.
Previously, doctors who had joined afterwards were on a lower pay scale because of the economic downturn in 2000. The salary for post-2000 doctors will increase by 15 to 38 per cent, with the new starting salary, including allowances, set at HK$55,015 and the maximum set at HK$116,930.
All doctors in the authority also have just had an across-the-board pay rise of 4.62 per cent or 4.96 per cent this month in line with the recent pay rise of civil servants.
The authority will offer a nine-year training contract instead of three-year contracts to new doctors. Once the doctors have completed specialised training, they will be offered permanent employment.
Also, it said it would try to reduce the administrative work for senior doctors, freeing them up to look after patients and train junior doctors.