Hong Kong’s struggling public hospitals need a transfusion of doctors and nurses from overseas

Albert Cheng says Hong Kong compares poorly with other developed economies in the proportion of medical practitioners in a population, and the government must be proactive in tackling the severe shortage

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Patients wait to be sent to the ward at the accident and emergency area of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in March 2016. While the winter flu surge has brought the manpower shortage at public hospitals to attention, the situation has been a cause for concern for several years. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 3:46pm, 22 Feb 2018Updated: 7:33pm, 22 Feb 2018

The new year started with a flu outbreak across the city. The early commencement of the Lunar New Year holiday for kindergartens and primary schools has not stopped influenza from spreading. Public hospitals are overburdened, medical staff are stretched to breaking point, and health officials warned that the flu surge has not peaked.

In January, the government announced extra funding of HK$500 million for public hospitals after the nursing staff association ran a full-page newspaper advertisement urging the government to tackle the manpower shortage at public hospitals. However, one-off extra funding is not the solution to a long-standing problem. The root of the problem is that the government has been neglecting the health-care system, which is on the verge of collapse.

The two former secretaries for health, York Chow Yat-ngok and Ko Wing-man, were both inclined towards the private medical sector. The bureau has been reluctant to allocate sufficient funding and resources to address the manpower shortage.

Adding to the problem is the deep-rooted protectionism in the local medical sector, which refuses to welcome overseas medical professionals. Given the worsening working conditions and the inadequate compensation, it is impossible to attract new and retain existing medical talent.

Hong Kong’s doctor shortage will not ease until 2020: government report

Last year, the new Tin Shui Wai Hospital failed to operate at its full capacity due to manpower shortage. The latest Audit Commission report also revealed a huge wastage of medical resources at North Lantau Hospital, where equipment has been left unused and one-fifth of the total area is not utilised.

A protectionist mindset no longer works in this city, which is understaffed almost wherever you look

In fact, in Hong Kong, the proportion of medical professionals in a population has fallen behind other developed countries’. In 2016, there were 52,389 nurses in Hong Kong, or 7.1 nurses per 1,000 population. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures in 2015, the highest number of nurses per 1,000 population is 17.9 in Switzerland, followed by 17.3 in Norway, 11.3 in the US and 7.9 in Britain. Hong Kong lags even Lithuania at 7.7.