Protesting Hong Kong nurses demand action over staffing shortages, saying public hospitals need more staff not money
- More than 100 members of Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff gather outside government headquarters to voice their discontent
- Health secretary Sophia Chan shows up to speak to protesters but is booed
Hong Kong authorities must hire more nurses to tackle an ongoing staffing crisis at public hospitals, according to the city’s largest nursing guild.
More than 100 members of the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff, which represents 60 per cent of the city’s 50,000 nurses, gathered outside the government headquarters on Sunday to voice their discontent at the shortage.
The nurses, as well as some doctors and former patients, brought with them black balloons to symbolise their unhappiness and stress.
Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee, who headed the University of Hong Kong’s school of nursing before joining the government in 2012, showed up at the rally to speak to protesters.
Chan pledged to ask the Hospital Authority to look into the problem. She also told the protesting nurses that starting from the end of the month, the authority’s pay for frontline medical staff working on extra shifts would be increased by 10 per cent.