‘We’re too busy with Covid for overseas doctors plan’

Medical sector lawmaker Pierre Chan said on Wednesday that the government pushing ahead with plans to allow overseas doctors to work in Hong Kong can only be a political move, being as everyone else is focused on tackling the pandemic.

On a radio programme, Chan was asked whether he thinks the administration is taking advantage of doctors being distracted by the Covid crisis to help it bring in changes to medical registration rules.

He said he couldn’t really answer that because of the national security law, but he wasn’t consulted about the plan for a new committee to decide on overseas medical schools to be recognised by the SAR.

“We are now focusing on fighting the pandemic, including worries like whether there will be another outbreak, imported cases caused by quarantine exemptions, the mutant variants, the vaccination rates…we are basically too busy. The amendment bill has nothing to do with fighting the pandemic,” he said.

Speaking on the same programme, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said the shortage of medical staff in public hospitals is a deep-rooted problem, and it therefore has to be tackled even as the government focuses on dealing with the pandemic.

“Of course we have spent much of our time fighting the pandemic, but the Hospital Authority has told me that [even] though their services are almost back to normal, some departments have been overloaded,” she said.

“Therefore the shortage of doctors should be solved immediately.”

On Tuesday, the government announced that a new committee will be set up to compile a list of up to 100 overseas medical schools that will be recognised by Hong Kong. Permanent residents who graduate from these schools will be allowed to work in the SAR’s public hospitals.