Localists and the medical cartel make strange bedfellows

Our chief executive recently told lawmakers in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t about to open a policy discussion on hiring more foreign doctors. Doing so, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said, would only cause controversy.

Well, you would be hard-pressed to think of a single substantial policy change that would not cause a big row among special interest groups in Hong Kong. When you are up against the entrenched interests of local doctors – both public and private – you are bound to cause controversy.

Though rarely remarked, when it comes to importing more foreign doctors and nurses, there is a strange opposition alliance being formed among the medical cartel, public doctors’ associations, the opposition pan-democrats and localist groups.

The medical lobby wants to preserve its monopoly, while insisting it is trying to protect the rest of us from inferior foreign-trained doctors, including, apparently, those from Harvard, Cambridge and Edinburgh. Public medical staff do not want the competition either, but higher pay, better perks and improved standing within the Hospital Authority, especially when it comes to policy input.

Pan-democrats cater to such medical groups, as they are one of their core professional constituencies. Meanwhile, anti-China localists are more than happy to exploit unsubstantiated claims, made by some public medical staff, that new mainland migrants are the cause of public hospitals being overwhelmed during the recent peak flu season.

These diverse groups make strange bedfellows. Against them are, more unusual than ever, pro-government groups such as the Liberal Party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, which are calling for an overhaul of the current regulatory regime restricting more foreign doctors from working here.