Overseas surgeons could skip HK exams
Public hospitals want to hire overseas surgeons - without requiring them to pass Hong Kong examinations - in the first exercise of its kind to relieve a severe manpower shortage.
But the plan received a poor response from the biggest public doctors' union yesterday, which warned against a lack of control over the overseas practitioners' qualifications if they did not take the exams.
Hong Kong Hospital Authority chairman Anthony Wu Ting-yuk said yesterday a programme was being worked out to use overseas doctors to relieve the burden on the local workforce in the short term.
The two universities with medical faculties will also increase medical intakes in coming years. But it takes six years to train a doctor.
The authority plans to apply to the Medical Council for 'limited registrations' for plastic surgeons and cardiothoracic (heart, chest and lung) surgeons from overseas.
Such registrations would mean those doctors would not need to take the Hong Kong licensing examination, though they could only work at public hospitals and clinics.
Authority chief executive Dr Leung Pak-yin said a first round of recruitment targeted Cantonese-speaking doctors who had studied overseas and had been practising outside Hong Kong. The authority has been negotiating with doctors' unions on measures to retain staff, including creating more senior posts, an allowance for overnight duties and more training opportunities.
Medical Association president Dr Choi Kin, also a Medical Council member, said the authority should not use recruitment of overseas doctors as a negotiation tool with unions. 'The authority is now in the process of negotiation with frontline doctors; we don't want to see it using this programme to suppress the bargaining power of the unions,' Choi said. 'The council has to examine carefully if the authority has a real need to bring in the overseas doctors.
'There should be a fair and transparent recruitment process.'
Public Doctors' Association president Dr Loletta So Kit-ying said: 'We welcome overseas doctors, but we believe that examinations are the best way to assure medical standards. Some of them may not know much about Hong Kong disease patterns such as hepatitis or tuberculosis, because these diseases are not prevailing in some countries.'
