Legislators are pushing for more pay equity between Chinese medicine practitioners and Western medicine doctors.
A recently graduated Chinese medicine student working at a public Chinese medicine clinic makes less than half the salary of a doctor working in a public hospital.
The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and Chinese medicine educators have called for salary increases for junior medicine practitioners to HK$33,000, equivalent to the starting salary of a pharmacist. Currently, junior medicine practitioners earn a monthly salary of between HK$15,000 and HK$16,000.
'In China, graduates who are Chinese medicine practitioners or doctors have the same salary and same status. It's much more reasonable than in Hong Kong,' said Albert Leung, an associate director of the School of Chinese Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
About 100 students graduate every year from the Chinese medicine departments of the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University and Baptist University.
After graduation, most work for one of the 14 public Chinese medicine clinics in Hong Kong. Each clinic is required to employ at least five local graduates as junior medicine practitioners, who undergo three years of training. Their salaries are determined by non-governmental organisations, such as the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, that run the Chinese medicine clinics.
'After three years, their salary will rise only slightly - from HK$15,000 to HK$18,000,' said legislator Gary Chan Hak-kan, who noted that a junior medicine practitioner's salary is lower than a registered nurse, who makes about HK$20,000 a month. 'Because the NGOs have limited resources, the possibility of salary increases is small.'