Hong Kong told to step up healthcare collaboration with Greater Bay Area cities and global institutions

Senior mainland health official Yu Yanhong urges city to use all of its advantages and pledges support
Health Authority to take a more aggressive approach to hunt for talent around the world, chairman says

Hong Kong healthcare and hospitals

Elizabeth Cheung

Published: 4:37pm, 16 May 2023

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Hong Kong should step up its healthcare collaboration with other cities in the Greater Bay Area, a senior mainland Chinese health official has said, adding the city should use its advantages to strengthen international exchanges.

Yu Yanhong, a senior official from the mainland’s National Health Commission, made the call on Tuesday at the city’s annual international convention organised by the Hospital Authority.

She made recommendations concerning the city playing a bigger role in healthcare development within the Greater Bay Area, Beijing’s plan to link up 11 southern Chinese cities, including Hong Kong and Macau, to tap the development potential of its combined 86 million-strong population.

Yu Yanhong, a senior official from the mainland’s National Health Commission, speaks at the Hospital Authority Convention. Photo: Elson Li

“Hong Kong and the mainland should maximise the high-level healthcare discussion platform to develop areas of interest,” Yu said.

“The healthcare collaboration within the bay area should also be strengthened,” she said, adding the mainland would support any health-related pilot schemes in the region.

She also encouraged the city’s medical practitioners to practise on the mainland.

“[The mainland] supports Hong Kong to make the most of its advantages, such as its location, language and resources, to start exchanges and collaborations with other countries on healthcare and traditional medicine,” she said.

Speaking at the same event, the authority’s chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling said it would take a more aggressive approach to hunt for talent apart from continuing the existing healthcare professionals exchange programme in the bay area.

“We are contemplating a global talent scheme to recruit healthcare talents from all over the world, for short-term employment of a year or two, in the Hospital Authority,” Fan said.

“These talents will be provided with advanced training and specialties of their choice.”

He described the arrangement as a “win-win situation”, as it could enrich the workers’ professional experience while alleviating the city’s staff shortage.

This year’s event, held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, is the first in-person edition since the outbreak of Covid-19 three years ago. The conference was cancelled last year and in 2020 because of the pandemic and was held in-person and online in 2021.

Executive Council member Dr Lam Ching-choi said there were several ways Hong Kong could strengthen collaboration in the Greater Bay Area, including extending the city’s elderly healthcare voucher to more mainland institutions.

Currently, elderly people could only use the voucher for outpatient services at the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital and its community centre.

Lam said the authorities could also explore whether Hongkongers staying in elderly care homes on the mainland could use healthcare services at a price similar to the locals.

The Secretary for Health, Lo Chung-mau, on Tuesday, met health officials from Guangdong province who were visiting the city.

Lo said Hong Kong would continue to push forward cooperation with its mainland counterparts in areas such as cross-boundary healthcare services, training of professionals and medical technology exchanges.

Other local health officials, including the Director of Health, Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin and the chief executive of the Hospital Authority, Dr Tony Ko Pat-sing, also met the mainland delegation.

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