Letters | Ageing Hong Kong needs shorter wait times for specialist doctors
- The waiting time for specialist doctors may go up to nearly three years, as data from last year shows. It’s time the authorities studied the data and considered how to better allocate manpower
Thanks to its high quality and low cost to users, Hong Kong’s public health care system is the primary service provider for the majority of the city’s residents, especially those seeing specialist doctors.
With population ageing, however, the shortage of specialist doctors could become more acute, with even longer waiting times across different departments. The Hospital Authority should optimise its manpower allocation and refine its feedback handling mechanism to better serve the public.
Public hospitals categorise the patients of specialist clinics into urgent, semi-urgent and stable cases, with the aim of keeping the waiting time for new cases in the first two categories under two and eight weeks, respectively.
In response to our enquiries, the Hospital Authority says patients with deteriorating conditions may contact the clinics to apply for an earlier appointment. Yet, no data is available as to how many patients with non-urgent conditions have secured earlier consultation meetings. We urge the government to collect and review such data to better understand the severity of the doctor shortage in different fields.
To shorten the waiting time for more patients, the authority should consider optimising the allocation of manpower. Consider the ear, nose and throat specialist clinics. For the year to September 30, the median waiting time was 26 weeks for patients in Hong Kong East, but 91 weeks in Kowloon East.