Latest Hong Kong plan to lure overseas doctors is unequal treatment, says city leader Carrie Lam
- Chief executive joins medical schools and health department in rejecting proposal to differentiate their doctors from those under the Hospital Authority
Hong Kong’s leader, medical schools and health department have joined hands to shoot down the latest proposal aimed at luring overseas-trained doctors to ease a chronic manpower shortage at public hospitals.
In a rare move, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor openly slammed the plan, saying it would give the impression doctors were being treated unequally depending on whether they worked at government hospitals, university medical schools or the Department of Health.
The proposal suggests imported doctors be allowed to practise freely anywhere in the city only after completing a period of service in the public sector, the length of which would be shorter if employed by the Hospital Authority, which manages all of Hong Kong’s government hospitals.
The plan was formulated after in-depth discussion among frontline doctors from a number of professional groups. But Lam said such differential treatment could impact efforts to recruit overseas-trained specialists for the health department, which is 40 per cent short of doctors for its child development assessment service.
“I hope the Medical Council will pass a plan that provides equal treatment for all doctors who come from abroad,” Lam said. “I understand the medical sector might want to set different requirements based on clinical considerations, but that would give a bad impression.”