Hong Kong Hospital Authority hiring spree sees 20 non-locally trained medics accept offers in London so far
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority has announced that its recent recruitment event in London has so far resulted in 20 non-locally trained medics accepting job offers. Medical professionals who studied outside Hong Kong are being sought to plug the gaps in the city’s public health care system amid an exodus and shortage of manpower.
Henry Fan, chairperson of HA, told the press on Monday that over 100 UK-trained doctors had conditionally been offered jobs in the city’s public health care system following the early April recruitment drive in England’s capital, with 20 having accepted offers as of April 16.
The overseas medics were offered a yearly salary of around £92,700 (HK$900,000) to £188,000 (HKD$1,827,000), with 25 days’ annual leave and a pathway to full registration, according to the HA recruitment poster.
Fan said the HA would send representatives to Australia in June to try to recruit more non-locally trained medics.
Arrival of mainland medics
The HA has been reaching out to non-locally trained medics as the city’s exodus has impacted its medical sector. Secretary of Health Lo Chung-mau said in March that 1,247 full-time doctors had left the hospital system over the past three years, only 191 of whom were retirees. The turnover rate of local doctors was 7.7 per cent last year, according to documents from the financial committee.
To try and attract non-locally trained doctors to work in Hong Kong, the city’s legislature has allowed graduates from 50 non-local medical schools to practice in the public health system without taking additional licensing exams. Despite hoping to attract 100 doctors after admission rules were relaxed, only around 10 have been willing to come.
Lo last month said that Hong Kong only had two doctors per 1,000 people, while Singapore had 2.8 and countries in Europe and North America had three.
The authority has also launched a programme aimed at fostering professional cooperation between medics from Hong Kong and mainland China.
The latest batch of 73 mainland Chinese medics – 70 nurses and three doctors – arrived in the city under the new talent scheme on Monday afternoon. Fan and Tony Ko, the chief executive of the HA, welcomed the group at the West Kowloon Railway Station.
Another 100 nurses are expected to arrive in the city by the end of this year, with a total of 300 nurses from mainland China were expected to come within two years to support the Hong Kong medical system, Fan said. They will work at different hospital across the city for 10.5 months to a year.
The HA chairperson added that the authority intended to expand the recruitment scheme to other countries around the globe.
Nearly a week before the announcement, Tony Ko told lawmakers in a Legislative Council meeting that HA will no longer require overseas doctors to understand Cantonese, although the authority would provide Cantonese courses.
“Their professional knowledge and techniques are what we value the most. We can handle the language barrier, ” Ko said.
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