At the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA) meeting on June 29, Chairperson Fan Hong-ling gave an update to the media on the latest loss of medical care personnel. He pointed out that as of the end of April, the attrition situation of doctors has improved slightly, with a net increase of 79 full-time doctors in the past 12 months, while the exodus of nurses continues unabated, with a net loss of 458.
Fan said the “Global Healthcare Talent Scheme” was officially launched earlier, hoping to attract medical professionals globally to join the HA for one to two years. Nearly 20 people from Europe, Southeast Asia, and mainland China have expressed interest. The HA will send delegates to discuss in more detail with the applicants and hope to recruit more than ten professionals by the end of the year.
Fan explained that by the end of April, there were 6,525 full-time doctors in the Hospital Authority, and 449 had left in the past 12 months. The turnover rate was 7.1 percent, a slight drop of 0.1 percent from the end of January 2023. During the same period, 528 joined the HA as full-time medical physicians, a net increase of 79.
For the nursing staff, as of the end of April, there were 29,427 full-time nurses in the Hospital Authority. In the past 12 months, 2,925 nurses left, with 2,467 joining the HA during the same time, a net loss of 458. This represents a turnover rate of 10.9 percent, a slight drop of 0.3 percentage points from 11.2 percent by the end of January this year. However, Fan still expressed concern about the situation and believed it was far from perfect.
He continued to point out that he supports the government’s proposal to introduce regulations on the limited registration of nurses, and the HA is actively preparing for it. Once the regulations are passed, they will send delegations to different places to recruit non-Hong Kong-trained nurses.
Regarding the progress of overseas recruitment, Fan said that about 59 medical personnel from the UK had passed the preliminary selection process. The authorities are discussing the finer detail, and it is expected that more medical personnel will arrive in Hong Kong in the second half of this year.
In Australia, the authorities have issued 45 conditional offers of employment, and the selection process is currently underway.
In terms of retaining talents, Fan pointed out that since the HA launched the “Enhanced Home Loan Interest Subsidy Scheme” at the end of 2022, it has received more than 1,100 applications so far, of which more than half of them come from streams with high turnover rate. The average age of applicants is between 37 and 42. Fan considered the scheme helpful in retaining manpower.
As for the scheme of “Extending Employment Beyond Retirement,” he pointed out that in 2023-24, a total of 65 doctors are willing to stay in the Hospital Authority, accounting for 84 percent of the doctors attaining their retirement age in the same period, while only 241 nurses are willing to continue, accounting for just 51 percent.
After Hong Kong enacted the National Security Law in 2020, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people emigrated overseas, among them were elites from various professional streams.
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority held a recruitment fair in London, England, on April 1 this year. Tony Ko Pat-sing, CEO of Hong Kong HA, led the delegation to recruit non-Hong Kong-trained medical students and practicing physicians to work for the Hong Kong public hospitals. The initial target was to lure about 100 doctors from overseas to serve in Hong Kong in the shortest possible time.
Ivan Law, former vice-chairperson of the disbanded HA Employees Alliance and a Hong Kong nurse who has emigrated to the UK, told the media that the prime target of the HA’s recruitment is Hong Kong people in the UK. And the biggest attraction is the high salary, even for a debutant, could be as high as double that of the same rank in the UK.
However, he believes that even if the Hong Kong government can successfully get overseas doctors to work in Hong Kong, it is still difficult to compensate for the attrition rate there. He said that the workload of medical staff in Hong Kong is nearly two to three times higher than that of the UK, which is believed to be a concern for overseas medical staff.
As for the medical staff who left Hong Kong, Law believes they may not want to return because they prefer the political freedom granted to all citizens in the UK.
