AN amendment seeking to move chiropractors from the health services functional constituency to the medical constituency was rejected.
Legislators voted 39 to 11 against an amendment raised by the Legislative Council's health service representative Michael Ho Mun-ka, with most of the doctors in the council saying the public would be misled if the move was successful.
Mr Ho said the placing of chiropractors in his functional constituency was a ''mis-classification'', since the difference between Western doctors and chiropractors in diagnosis and prescription was very little.
The doctors were worrying unnecessarily about people being confused.
Frederick Fung Kin-kee from the Association of Democracy and People's Livelihood said that since the statutory status of chiropractors had been established, they should enjoy the same status as doctors.
It was a popular alternative treatment and could not be ignored, he said.