Hospital Authority welcomes Government’s proposal to strengthen manpower of doctors
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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The Hospital Authority (HA) today (May 18) welcomed the Government’s announcement on submission to the Legislative Council of the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill 2021 on June 2 to introduce a new pathway for non-locally trained Hong Kong doctors to return to Hong Kong and serve the community.
The HA spokesperson said, “The HA will continue to give priority to recruiting all suitable medical graduates from local universities. The returning non-locally trained Hong Kong doctors will help increase the doctors’ manpower in Hong Kong to cope with the ageing population and increasing service demand.”
To uphold professional quality, the Government will set up a Special Registration Committee (SRC) to assess the medical qualifications awarded by non-local medical schools and determine the list of recognised medical qualifications meeting the requirements. An HA representative will be a member of the SRC.
Under the new proposal, local students can complete their studies with accredited non-local medical courses and return to serve in Hong Kong. Public hospitals will continue to collaborate with the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine to enable non-locally trained doctors to continue with their specialist training while working in Hong Kong, and provide supervision and assess their job performance.
“The Hospital Authority has always been very concerned about the manpower situation of doctors in public hospitals and has implemented various human resources measures, including the recruitment of full-time and part-time healthcare staff, increasing promotion opportunities and strengthening training for doctors, and continuing the Special Retired and Rehire Scheme, in order to increase and retain doctors’ manpower, meet service demand and alleviate the workload of front-line doctors.”
As at the end of April this year, a total of 33 non-locally trained doctors were practising in the HA for limited registration under the Limited Registration Scheme. The new proposal is believed to help attract non-locally trained doctors to join the local public healthcare system.
The spokesperson added that amid the ageing population and rising demand for healthcare services, the HA has proceeded with the two 10-year hospital development programmes to provide more hardware facilities for public healthcare. However, the demand for doctors in public hospitals will also increase correspondingly. The Government’s proposed plan can increase and stabilise the supply of medical talents for Hong Kong.