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Letters | Hong Kong medical schools aren’t ranked the best in the world, so why shut out doctors trained overseas?
- By making it hard for overseas-trained doctors and nurses to practise in Hong Kong, the city is shutting its doors also to professionals from the world’s top medical schools
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I am writing regarding the controversy over the Medical Council’s restriction of doctors trained overseas from practising in our overcrowded public hospital system (“Scrap internships for overseas-trained doctors who work in Hong Kong” May 2). It is a disgrace that the gatekeepers at the Medical Council make us, the taxpaying public, suffer with long waiting times for medical appointments because they believe doctors trained abroad are not up to Hong Kong standards.
According to the 2019 QS World University rankings, the University of Hong Kong’s medical faculty came in at 29th, an improvement from 34th last year. The top five are medical schools at American and English universities. Having been treated at a public hospital in Hong Kong and seen how nurses and doctors have to go about tending to patients makes me wonder why they have chosen to be in the medical profession at all.
We all deserve a better system, to receive timely and proper care when we are sick and not to have to wait years for an appointment, just because we can’t afford or don’t get private medical insurance as part of our salary package.
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There is absolutely no reason foreign doctors and nurses should not enter the public hospital system. Perhaps by letting them work in public hospitals, the service could actually improve. Moreover, the government should allocate more money to building new hospitals or expanding existing ones.
Finally, the hospital at North Lantau must become fully functional, instead of just being a glorified clinic.
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Aileen Valentine, Tung Chung
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