Advertisement
Advertisement
Tim Pang (left) and Dr Tse Hung-hing have different takes on infected medical staff. Photos: SCMP Pictures

Rise in Hong Kong medical staff suffering from HIV - but should they be allowed to operate on patients?

Fresh concern has arisen over whether doctors with HIV should be allowed to operate on unsuspecting patients after official figures indicated a rise in reports of medical staff with the virus.

Department of Health records show there have been 43 HIV carriers working in the medical field since 1994, when an expert panel was set up to monitor the situation. They include doctors, nurses, dentists and other specialists.

There were six such reports in the first seven months of this year, according to the department’s expert panel on HIV infection of health care workers.

This compared with six cases for last year and five in 2013.

The expert panel assesses  whether infected health care workers need to have their jobs modified and whether patients of such staff should be tested.

The latest figures revived fears after a case in 2012 in which a surgeon from a public hospital committed suicide after he was confirmed to have HIV. Follow-up tests on some 130 of his patients found they had not been infected. But the case led to calls for compulsory HIV disclosure for medical staff.

There must be measures in place to protect [the doctor] and the patients
Tim Pang

Tim Pang Hung-cheong, spokesman for the Patients’ Rights Association,  said: “I am not suggesting that there should be compulsory HIV disclosure. But when a doctor gets sick, he is a patient. And there must be measures in place to protect him and the patients. Should we still allow him to do intrusive treatment?”

Medical Association immediate past president Dr Tse Hung-hing  argued that compulsory disclosure was not practical. “AIDS is not even a notifiable disease in Hong Kong. How could we know who has HIV and who does not?”

According to the professional code of conduct of the Medical Council, “medical practitioners are generally not required to disclose their HIV status to their patients or employers” and “there is no justification for restricting practice of medical practitioners on the basis of HIV status alone”.

The guidelines of the Hong Kong Advisory Council on AIDS say: “Maintaining confidentiality is not only necessary to protect individual privacy, it is also essential for encouraging health care workers [either infected or at risk of infection] to come forward for proper counselling and management.”

An estimated 35 million people were living with HIV worldwide at the end of 2013, according to the World Health Organisation. In 2014, 1.2 million people died from HIV-related causes globally. 

Post