Flu season a reminder of Hong Kong’s pressing need for more foreign-trained doctors in public hospitals

Inside Hong Kong’s public hospital crisis: temporary beds, angry patients, nurses and doctors stretched to breaking point

The Medical Council of Hong Kong used to recognise medical qualifications of select Commonwealth countries. After 1997, however, it required all non-locally-trained doctors to pass its licensing examination and to complete an internship. As a result, the proportion of foreign-trained doctors – which had first increased from 40 per cent between 1990 and 1994 to 66 per cent in 1996 in anticipation of the policy change in 1997 – fell to 20 per cent between 1997 and 2003, and finally to a negligible 3 per cent in the 2004-2010 period.Concurrently, the number of newly registered doctors annually has declined from 523 over the 1990-1996 period, to 409 over the 1997-2003 period, and 316 over the 2004-2010 period.

The sudden decrease in new doctors after 1997, coupled with rising demand from the mainland, has caused an increase in costs for medical services and better compensation for doctors in the private sector. However, public hospitals have encountered restrictions on raising service prices and offering doctors better pay, leading to the exodus from public hospitals to the private sector.

Doctors deny condition critical at Hong Kong’s public hospitals despite complaints and creaking system

The government has a few options. One is to increase the budget for public hospitals. But these establishments will still be short of doctors as long as their pay lags behind the private sector.