Post-Occupy scars: Hong Kong doctors get record number of complaints for refusing to treat police during street protests
Rise in complaints linked to political grievances, many against medics who refused to treat police
A record number of complaints against doctors in Hong Kong were filed with the Medical Council last year, particularly during the 79 days of the Occupy protests.
In a recent judgment the High Court criticised the self-regulating body’s delay in handling the complaints – up 38 per cent from 452 in 2013 to 624 last year – as “a lamentable state of affairs”.
Many complaints were “political in nature”, council chairman Professor Joseph Lau Wan-yee told the South China Morning Post, and were directed against medical practitioners who refused to treat police officers during the Occupy movement.
Lau said it showed how the pro-democracy movement had “seriously split” society.
“It was not at all surprising that the widely polarised views about the movement were reflected in the many complaints we received last year,” he said.