Coronavirus: more than 500 doctors, health care workers in Hong Kong join calls for border closure with mainland China, threatening strikes in strongly worded letters to officials
- Frontline staff are complaining about a ‘dangerous working environment’, claiming poor hospital rosters put their lives and that of patients at risk
- Medical staff say border measures needed to ‘curb perverse incentive’ for non-residents to come to city for medical care amid crisis
More than 500 doctors, nurses and health care professionals in Hong Kong public hospitals have threatened to go on strike after penning strongly worded letters to officials, demanding immediate action to close the city’s borders with mainland China.
Frontline staff in the overburdened local medical sector also complained about a “dangerous working environment” amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak that put both their lives and that of patients at risk.
The action included a group of 403 health workers in internal medicine from Hong Kong West Cluster public hospitals who put their names in an open letter on Thursday, issuing four demands, among which was the complete closure of all border control points.
The group also pressed the government to deport visitors from Hubei province, or isolate them for two weeks, in line with steps taken by Macau.
The medical staff, from Queen Mary, Grantham, Fung Yiu King and Tung Wah hospitals, said the measures were needed to “curb the perverse incentive” for non-residents to come to the city for medical care at this critical time, and “prevent a full-blown outbreak” in Hong Kong.