New land policy urged to increase growth of private hospitals in HK

Hong Kong is losing out in the region in developing private hospital services because of expensive land and staff costs, hospital operators and investors say.

They are urging the government to consider land premium concessions for the private sector, saying that increasing the sector's capacity is essential to successful health-care reform.

A government consultation document last Thursday called for closer co-operation between the public and private sectors. It said the imbalance between the two meant the public now relied heavily on public services, which take care of 90 per cent of in-patient services. There are 12 private hospitals in Hong Kong providing 3,000 beds and most of the time they are full.

The consultation document proposed that public and private hospitals could in future be built on the same sites, enabling mutual purchase of services and sharing of facilities. It also raised the issue of whether new land arrangements were needed for private hospitals.

The document said: 'In public-private partnership development projects, land is involved and arrangements have to be put in place to ensure that the premium or rental charged for the use of such valuable public resources would be fair to both the private hospital concerned and to the community.'

Alan Lau Kwok-lam, president of Private Hospital Association, said the private sector was saturated and new hospitals were badly needed if the government wanted to attract more public patients.

'We estimate that the number of private beds should be at least 4,500 in five years or even double to 6,000. We need some safety margin, now all hospitals are full,' Dr Lau said.