Doctors express doubts that new scheme will ease burden on public health sector

Doctors' groups believe the Hospital Authority's (HA) latest move to allow retiring doctors to stay on will barely scratch the surface in easing the pressure on understaffed public hospitals.

Hong Kong's public hospitals take care of 90 percent of the city's patients with only 40 percent of its total medical staff. They are expected to face an increasing manpower challenge owing to a wave of retirements in the coming two years.

In light of this, the HA planned to spend HK$570 million to keep on some 2,500 to-be-retired staff, including 60 senior doctors, for two more years to get through the rough patch.

But Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association President Pierre Chan Pui-yin said the new move would not meet the authority's expectations for relieving the labor shortage in the public health system.

Chan said soon-to-be-retired senior doctors would only do clinic hours and rounds, while frontline doctors normally have eight different tasks daily. This includes running various tests, doing consultations for other doctors and writing patient reports. While senior doctors' experience was greatly valued, many of them might not have the strength to do the physical labor needed, Chan said.

Tensions in public hospitals have increased recently; public doctors on Sunday threatened to stage a sit-in on Wednesday after the HA broke with its normal practice by not following the pay rises of public servants this year.

Concerns about being under paid and long working hours have been cited as the prime reasons for the high rate of resignations. On average, 4.2 percent of doctors leave public hospitals every year.

Among the 5,000 doctors working in public hospitals, half are specialists. But the city's public doctors are still overwhelmed with large numbers of patients. In some extreme cases, the waiting time for new case bookings for specialist out-patient services exceeds three years. For example, patients need to wait 175 weeks to see an orthopedics and traumatology specialist in the Kowloon East Hospital Cluster.

Former president of the Hong Kong Medical Association Tse Hung-hing believed the delayed retirement plan would have limited effect. Tse said senior doctors, who can work independently, were more efficient than junior doctors. The labor shortage was a misconception as the real problem lay in the ratio of junior/senior doctors, he said.

Tse said he expected there would be more doctors retiring in 2020 when the first batch of medical students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1985 starts to retire.

The government is doing the final consultation on the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme. This is aimed at encouraging more people to seek medical services outside the public medical system. This is in order to make room for those who have acute needs. However, a survey done by a workers' union showed only 16 percent of people are willing to join the insurance scheme, which costs HK$3,600 a year based on the government's calculation in 2012.

The city's medical expenditure has increased from 15 percent to a historical high of 17 percent of the government's total expenditure in 2011. But, it is still far less than that of Australia and Canada, both of which spent 17 percent of government expenditure on medical care back in 2003.

Tse said the cost-oriented mindset had stopped the city from improving its medical services for citizens while neglecting the needs of patients.

Chan also urged the government to increase investment in medical services as the administration had the money to do this.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 10/20/2015 page9)