Hong Kong facing dire doctor shortage, health minister warns as legislature set to weigh overseas hiring bill
- City’s leader to choose as many as four of 10 members on committee tasked with deciding a list of recognised medical schools
- The government will present the controversial bill to the legislature on June, health chief says
Thousands of doctors practising outside Hong Kong will be allowed to return and work in their hometown without taking the local licensing exam under a proposal the legislature will scrutinise next month, the health minister has revealed as she warned of a “severe shortage” in the health care sector.
With only about 15,000 doctors in the city, a failure to adopt the hiring framework would result in 1,610 fewer doctors than what would be needed by 2030, with the figure rising to 1,949 by 2040, Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee said on Tuesday.
Under the detailed proposal submitted to the Legislative Council, the city’s leader will choose as many as four of 10 members on a committee tasked with deciding a list of outside medical schools recognised under the scheme. The list is expected to be made available next year at the earliest.
“Hong Kong is facing a serious shortage of doctors,” Chan said. “The shortage will continue to worsen.”
The Hospital Authority supported the proposal, while an advocacy group that pushes for greater patient rights said more doctors would shorten the wait to see specialists. But some local doctors remain sceptical of the plan and stressed the licensing exam was essential to ensure that all practitioners were capable.
Chan noted Hong Kong had just two doctors for every 1,000 residents, a ratio worse than places such as Singapore, Canada and Japan. Simply increasing the number of local medical students could not close that gap, she said, adding the existing shortage meant the average wait for an initial appointment with a specialist in public clinics ranged from 31 weeks to 133 weeks.