Hong Kong seeks to recruit hospital nurses from Malaysia to ease ‘severe’ staffing shortage
Hong Kong Free Press
A team from Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority (HA) has visited Kuala Lumpur to try to recruit Malaysian nurses in hopes of easing a significant manpower shortage in Hong Kong’s public hospitals, with 2,559 nurses resigning or retiring last year.
The authority hosted recruitment briefing sessions on Monday and Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, introducing a new policy to allow non-locally trained nurses to work in Hong Kong, according to a statement on Wednesday.
“The response was very positive, with many participants expressing interest in coming to Hong Kong for career development,” Simon Tang, the HK’s director of cluster services, said in the statement. “We will organise recruitment activities in more countries and regions in the future to attract more non-locally trained nurses to alleviate the severe pressure in our public hospitals.”
The legislature passed an amendment to the Nurse Registration Ordinance on July 17, with the aim of allowing non-locally trained nurses to practise in Hong Kong without taking a licensing exam as they had to previously.
The government said last December the aim was to alleviate the shortage of nurses in the public healthcare system and the social welfare sector, “premised on the condition of not compromising professional standards.”
The new policy introduced three new pathways for admitting overseas nurses. “Special registration/enrolment” allows them to register in Hong Kong without having to take tests after working full-time in one or more specified organisations for a certain number of years.
The other two pathways are “limited registration/enrolment” and “temporary registration/enrolment,” but these only allow work in specific institutions and cannot lead to full registration.
The overseas nurses admitted under the new pathways will be allowed to work in public hospitals, residential care homes or other healthcare institutions designated by the Social Welfare Department.
The HA has set up a team to provide support and counselling for non-locally trained nurses interested in coming to Hong Kong.
Non-locally trained medics
Authorities have introduced multiple initiatives to retain local medical talent and attract overseas medics, including extending the retirement age for local doctors and nurses to 65 and offering low-interest home loans to public hospital staff in 2021.
The attrition rate among medics surged in 2020 as large numbers of people began to leave the city. According to government figures, the rate for doctors in public hospitals was 6.1 per cent in 2023 while that for nurses in public hospitals was 9.5 per cent.
To attract more overseas doctors, the government launched a new pathway in 2021 for qualified doctors graduating from recognised overseas medical schools to be “specially registered” in Hong Kong without taking a licensing exam. Those who have worked for five years in public hospitals can become fully registered, allowing them to enter private practice.
Health chief Lo Chung-mau in July estimated around 250 non-locally trained doctors would arrive by the end of 2024 under the new pathway.
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