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Explainer | A long-simmering debate about foreign-trained doctors within Hong Kong’s medical community has boiled over amid new policy proposals
- Chief Executive Carrie Lam has surprised many by revealing plans to amend the law to allow more overseas-trained doctors to practise locally
- However, such a plan has long been unpopular with local practitioners, many of whom question whether it will actually solve the sector’s staffing shortage
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Last week, a previously obscure issue that has long vexed Hong Kong’s medical circles was suddenly thrust into the public limelight.
It immediately triggered bitter rows in public and threatened to reopen old wounds in an embattled health sector that is deep in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The thorny issue involves calls for lowering entrance thresholds in the medical profession in a bid to attract overseas doctors to practise in Hong Kong to ease the city’s chronic staffing crunch.
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The row has been years, if not decades, in the making, and the city’s leader has previously said she was prepared to “go to war” on the subject. Here, the Post examines why the matter is so contentious, what the future holds for the city’s doctors and whether the new proposals can finally plug the long-standing service gap and meet patients’ needs.
What exactly has been proposed?
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On Thursday, during a question and answer session with lawmakers in her first visit to the Legislative Council of the new year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor surprised many by revealing that the government would submit an amendment to the Medical Registration Ordinance in the current legislative session to allow more qualified, overseas-trained doctors to practise locally.
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