Overseas nurses may ease shortage

Public hospitals may soon be able to recruit overseas nurses under a limited registration system because of a severe staff shortage - which has reached a stage that each nurse has to take care of an average of more than 60 patients.

Overseas nurses may be allowed to work at Hong Kong's public hospitals before passing the city's licensing examinations, said Secretary for Food and Health Dr York Chow Yat-ngok.

'We hope to discuss with the Nursing Council to see if we can let overseas nurses work in Hong Kong under special conditions, just like doctors,' he said.

The Hospital Authority is still short of 1,000 nurses to maintain services, despite having spent HK$200 million to recruit 1,600 nurses in recent years.

The shortage is comparable to the doctors' staffing problem. The authority earlier announced it was planning to hire overseas doctors under limited registration. These doctors do not need to sit for the medical council's licensing examination and can be exempted from the one-year internship. In exchange they can only work in the public sector.

Professor Thomas Wong Kwok-shing, who stepped down as the chairman of the Nursing Council last month, said this was the direction the licensing committee was looking to solve the nurse shortage problem, but details have not yet been finalised.