Hong Kong’s ailing public hospitals to get HK$5 billion injection in Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s budget for investing in advanced equipment

Hong Kong’s public hospitals will get a funding injection of HK$5 billion (US$641 million) to be announced in Wednesday’s budget for investing in advanced medical equipment for cancer patients and those who require specialist care.

The offer is part of a basket of morale-boosting measures for public health care as overburdened frontline medical staff have reached breaking point, as evidenced by swamped outpatient clinics during the peak flu season.

Many are also watching to see if Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po’s spending blueprint will support a far-reaching proposal floated by Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a top microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

Yuen, a leading voice in the medical sector, has suggested setting up a HK$50 billion seed fund for the Hospital Authority so that the operator of the city’s public hospitals would be able to weather financial storms.

A source close to the drafting of the budget said the HK$5 billion injection would be spent on advanced equipment as well as upgrading existing facilities. It is understood the authority had asked the government for the funding on top of its regular subvention for new technology for procedures such as CAT scans and cancer therapies.

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The one-off funding, confirmed by a source from the authority, would allow specialists to undertake further training to operate these new technologies.

In his budget speech, expected to last for two hours, Chan would also announce spending of HK$400 million annually to expand coverage of the drug formulary to benefit more cancer patients. Another HK$600 million per year would be used to boost subsidies for doctors and nurses.

“The administration really cares about medical professionals working on the front line and also patients using the public health care system,” the government source said. “One can tell from all the measures to be rolled out for the sector, from infrastructure and manpower to drugs.”

But a senior radiologist, who preferred not to be named, poured scorn on the idea, saying new equipment would not get to the root of the problem – the severe manpower shortage.

“It will be meaningless to have more equipment if there are insufficient specialists to operate it. We do not have enough people to write reports on images [produced by CAT scans],” he said.

The radiologist said the government should first solve the manpower crisis and then introduce extra equipment.

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Yuen, meanwhile, said setting up an endowment fund would help the health care system to continue to cope with changes.

That included during economic downturns.

“What would happen with a cut in resources, given that what we have now can barely meet needs? Interest from the fund could then be used,” Yuen said.

He said the fund could also be used to cover the high cost of new technology and medication, or to hire more staff when there was a surge in demand for services.

Additional reporting by Emily Tsang and Elizabeth Cheung