Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/letters/article/2187064/fishballs-and-celebrity-videos-tackle-health-care-crisis-hong-kong
Comment/ Letters

Fishballs and celebrity videos to tackle health care crisis: the Hong Kong government is truly clueless

  • ‘Brilliant’ ideas from the government in response to public concerns can leave some citizens quite despondent
Protesters show their support for overworked medical staff outside the Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei. Photo: Dickson Lee

The shortage of hospital resources in Hong Kong is not news to the public any more. There have been numerous voices calling for additional staff or an increase in pay, as doctors and nurses protested over their heavy workload during the peak flu season or for having to spend too much time on paperwork instead of tending to patients. However, the government’s response to the problem has been shamefully poor.

For example, the Hospital Authority invited movie stars and other famous people to film supportive videos, and it delivered fishballs and siu mai to frontline doctors and nurses at one hospital. A big question mark pops up in my head: how does the government come up with such useless ‘brilliant’ ideas?

Having this kind of government, which gives out suggestions without thinking through their effectiveness, makes me despondent. Just take the Caring and Sharing Scheme as an example. The government spent more on administrative fees in giving out HK$4,000 to eligible citizens identified through a painstaking process, than in giving out HK$6,000 to each permanent resident in 2011.

These failures suggest that the government is quite clueless. It is no wonder that citizens like me feel hopeless.

Fung Siu Chung, Tseung Kwan O

Nurses patrol the wards at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Nora Tam
Nurses patrol the wards at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Nora Tam

Spare doctors the endless meetings and paperwork

There is a long way to go to find a truce between medical staff and their managers if we want to avoid the “close a bed, open an office, attend more meetings” syndrome. It diverts staff and scarce health funding from patient care, as well as delaying it, risking worse outcomes. While being made to attend marathon soporific meetings, doctors’ still-to-be-seen caseloads pile up. Surely this is bad for health care.

The pen pushers, desk jockeys and executives in plush offices are a costly drain on health budgets, and only impede and demoralise frontline medical staff

In the era of evidence-based medicine underpinned by proven health benefits, it is staggering that up to a quarter of the health care budgets in advanced health systems are wasted in funding an administration sector, when there is no evidence of it resulting in cost savings elsewhere nor any benefit in terms of patient mortality. The pen pushers, desk jockeys and executives in plush offices are a costly drain on health budgets and they only impede and demoralise frontline medical staff.

I’d argue that limiting this bureaucracy would free up money for clinical care of patients and allow doctors and nurses to do their jobs better, without the impeding oversight.

Joseph Ting, Brisbane