My Take | Hong Kong doctors in public sector need better treatment
With the children’s hospital in Kai Tak due to open its doors later this year, the government has acknowledged a shortage of specialists and measures must be taken
You don’t need to be a doctor to find comments by Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung about Hong Kong’s shortage of doctors amusing.
Speaking at a Hospital Authority event, the government’s No 2 said the city was short of doctors in general and the children’s hospital being built in Kai Tak needed more specialists too.
“We welcome any non-locally trained doctors to serve at this state-of-the-art hospital,” he said. “It will serve as a tertiary specialist hospital for the management of complex paediatric cases.”
But how can it be state-of-the-art when it doesn’t have the required specialist doctors?
No matter how advanced and new pieces of equipment are, presumably you need people who are qualified to operate them. Is that the real reason why the hospital is only opening in phases, starting from later this year? Well, parents, take note.
It’s not true that the city doesn’t have enough doctors. It’s the public hospital system that keeps losing specialists to the private sector. The government estimates the shortfall last year at 285 and is expected to reach 500 in two years and more than 1,000 in 12 years.