Hong Kong public hospitals chief hints at ‘concrete plans’ to address brain drain in medical sector amid citywide exodus
- The plans are intended to address growing concerns that a recent wave of emigration may negatively affect the city’s health care system
- Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan has declined to elaborate on the plans, saying he hoped they would be approved later this month
Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling declined to elaborate on the details of the plans, telling the press on Sunday only that he hoped they would be approved and made public at the body’s next general meeting on September 23.
The authority’s chief executive, Dr Tony Ko Pat-sing, provided more hints in his online blog on Sunday.
“We will adopt a multipronged approach to increase the number of doctors, including through various schemes to rehire retired doctors and recruit part-time ones, as well as a special remuneration scheme, to increase the caseload capacities and provide more timely and quality care to our patients,” he wrote.
The Hospital Authority previously said that the attrition rate for doctors had fallen to 4.1 per cent as of March this year, down from 5.4 per cent in 2020 and 6.4 per cent in 2019.