Hong Kong doctors join localist protest against one-way permit scheme, as mainland migrant influx blamed for stretched hospitals
- Radiation therapist says seven in 10 patients daily are new migrants from mainland, contributing to overcrowding in city’s health care system
- Permit scheme was launched in the 1980s to encourage family reunifications, allowing 150 mainlanders to settle daily
Hong Kong doctors joined localists on Sunday to call for the abolition of a controversial migrant scheme taking in 150 mainlanders daily – a policy activists blamed for overcrowding at public hospitals.
Some 20 protesters, claiming to represent about 30 concern groups and political parties, staged a rally outside the office of the city’s leader in Admiralty, decrying the so-called one-way permit scheme.
“Out of 10 patients I have to deal with in a day, at least seven are new migrants,” radiation therapist Ng Chi-kit, of Prince of Wales Hospital, said.
“You can tell they are new migrants by the spellings of their names and the prefixes in their ID card numbers.”
The tension was sparked by public hospitals being stretched to breaking point as medical staff battled the winter flu surge since the start of the year.