Doctor shortage: private hospitals can help Hong Kong produce more specialists, Gleneagles chief says
- The private sector is ready to do more, but Hospital Authority ‘may be worried about losing doctors’, CEO Kenneth Tsang says
- To ease the crunch at public hospitals, allow more patients to go private at subsidised rates, he suggests
Hong Kong’s private hospitals can provide an extra 400 training places a year for medical specialists and help ease an acute shortage of doctors in the city if the public sector collaborates with them, the head of a private health group has said.
Amid a simmering row over a government plan to bring in foreign-trained doctors, Dr Kenneth Tsang Hing-lim, the new CEO of Gleneagles Hospital, said the private sector could also be tapped to provide more primary health and outpatient care during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The Hospital Authority has done well as a safety net for Covid-19 patients, but it also has had to cut down on other services,” he said, adding that it would be “a win-win situation” if more public sector patients began using private hospitals at subsidised rates.
The government estimates Hong Kong will be short nearly 2,000 doctors by 2040, and a bill before the Legislative Council will allow more doctors trained overseas to practise in the city.
Under the Medical Registration Ordinance bill, doctors trained elsewhere can gain full registration without having to pass a local licensing examination as long as they are Hong Kong permanent residents, graduates of recognised medical schools, registered to practise elsewhere and prepared to work in the public sector for at least five years.
