Letters | Hong Kong’s driving test routes must include pedestrian crossings and roundabouts
- Readers call for a review of the approved driving test routes, improvements in medical education to ease the doctor shortage, funding to encourage private clinics to join the eHealth system, and help for teens coping with pandemic-induced isolation
One extremely important aspect of road safety is the testing of drivers before permitting them to hold a driving licence.
The Transport Department has approved 58 driving test routes on which to take the practical driving test. Two of these routes have no pedestrian crossings and a staggering 36 routes have no roundabouts. Only 20 out of the 58 test routes have both roundabouts and pedestrian crossings.
If test routes are assigned randomly and equally, about 62 per cent of new drivers will not have been tested on their ability to drive on a roundabout. The Transport Department must urgently review the approved driving test routes to ensure drivers are properly tested, especially through pedestrian crossings and roundabouts. This in turn will enhance road safety.
Neil Dunn, Kowloon Tong
Are our students of medicine prepared to practise it?
As Hongkongers, we are used to hearing about this. Every year, at the peak of the influenza season, we read stories about the long wait to see a doctor.
But here’s the mystery. Why is it that, despite the number of Hong Kong students fighting to enter medical school, the doctor shortage is still so serious? Doctors enjoy people’s respect and high social status in Hong Kong. It is certainly a job attractive to students and their parents.
My question is for the elite students who earned a place in medical school after rounds of fierce competition: do they choose to study medicine out of a sense of vocation or simply because of their excellent exam results and a desire to take up a profession that pays high salaries?
Are they really prepared for the heavy workload and mental stress of being a doctor, or even of being a medical student? Students have dropped out of medical school, and some realise that they are not suited to the job only after they graduate.
Instead of just facilitating the licensing of more foreign-trained doctors in Hong Kong, a move that has divided the different stakeholders, efforts should be made to improve the effectiveness of local education to nurture more medical professionals to ease the shortage.
Jane Yang, Tsuen Wan
Funding will go long way in eHealth promotion
The government should also provide more funding support for private clinics to share records via eHealth.
To join eHealth, private clinics have to revamp their own medical information management system to comply with the security and operational requirements of the government system. The Hong Kong Medical Association has partnered with a private company to provide the related technical support.
Signing up for it requires payment of a one-off installation fee and a monthly fee. As private clinics may not be willing to pay such fees regularly, the government should provide subsidies for setting up eHealth.
In response to our enquiries, the Food and Health Bureau says it has not received any funding applications from private clinics wishing to join the eHealth system but welcome health care providers to apply for funding to procure the necessary hardware, software and technological services for eHealth.
We urge the government to make a concerted effort to better support private clinics joining eHealth.
Ying Liu and Yuchen Wu, Kowloon Tong
Teens hit hard by social distancing need friends
Across Asia, youth suicide rates have risen amid the pandemic and lockdowns. Japan recorded 499 child suicides last year, more than 25 per cent more than in 2019. In Malaysia, one in four of the 266 suicides recorded between mid-March and October last year involved teenagers. Thailand recorded 141 suicides among those aged 10-19 last year, 30 per cent more than in 2019.
Teenagers worldwide appear to have been sucked into a vortex of distress.
I think that one of the major factors contributing to the tragedy is the social distancing measures, which cut young people off from their support networks of friends and from social activities. This has an impact on teenagers’ mental health in the long run, since the teen years are when many of us establish friendships that last for the rest of our lives.
To develop and strengthen friendships during this difficult time, it would be a good idea to at least hold meetings via video. It doesn’t have to be formal. You can invite your friends to chill out together and share their pandemic stories. Build support networks of friends, and reinforce friendships in spite of the pandemic.
No matter how serious the challenges are, we must not succumb to them. As long as we have friends who have our backs no matter what, things will be all right.
Mandy Yau, Tung Chung
