MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): Deputy President, although the subject of our debate today is healthcare services in Kowloon East, healthcare problems have all along been a concern to the public. Moreover, the occurrence of a spate of serious medical incidents recently has caused grave concern in the community about the quality of public healthcare services. For this reason, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the problem of public healthcare services in Hong Kong from a more macroscopic angle.
Although all the public hospitals in Hong Kong boast of world-class medical equipment, and our medical technology ranks high in the world, members of the public will still flock to public hospitals whenever they fall ill because of the low fees and charges in the public sector. As a result, public hospitals are constantly packed with patients. A couple of years ago, the Government came up with the idea of streaming public and private healthcare services and subsidizing members of the public to take out medical insurance, with a view to diverting some middle-class people to private hospitals. It was originally a good way to ease the pressure on public hospitals, for only a small amount of subsidy from the Government is required to induce the diversion of the middle class from public hospitals. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the Voluntary Health Insurance proposal was eventually abolished. I believe the retention of tax deduction as the only government subsidy can only attract the participation of a small number of middle-class people in the end. Given the limited effect of diversion, public hospitals will continue to be stretched to the limits.
On the other hand, public hospitals face the problem of manpower shortage. Information has revealed that, as of October last year, the turnover rates of doctors, nurses and professional healthcare personnel in public hospitals reached a new height of six years, with the turnover rates of doctors, nurses and individual specialists reaching 4.7%, 5.4% and even as high as 10% respectively. In fact, the Hospital Authority (“HA”) has admitted recently that the existing structure still requires 300 additional doctors and 600 additional nurses, which makes it impossible for some new hospitals to launch services in a comprehensive manner. Meanwhile, the problem of population ageing has led to an increasing number of people seeking treatment at public hospitals and a very long waiting time for patients seeking accident and emergency (“A&E”) or specialist services.
Therefore, the core problem currently faced by the public healthcare sector is having too many patients and inadequate healthcare personnel. The work pressure faced by healthcare personnel is thus evident. No wonder there has been constant staff wastage. During the peak seasons of influenza recently, we have seen both A&E departments and medical wards inevitably stretched to their limits and public hospitals adopt emergency measures. As we all know, quite a number of frontline healthcare personnel are worth praises for remaining steadfast in their posts and providing the public with good services. However, I have also heard quite a number of people complain that some healthcare personnel have become quite insensitive because they have to deal with enormous amounts of workload, and their alertness to patients has inevitably been lowered significantly. I also felt the same when I went to public hospitals during visit hours. Certainly, we have to appreciate the plight of the healthcare personnel. However, healthcare services have a bearing on the lives and health of the public, and a small failure can make a major blunder. We must therefore address this issue squarely. Fortunately, Secretary Dr KO has achieved good results during his tenure and carried out many reforms amid difficulties. We can see that the Government has earmarked $200 billion for the promotion of a 10-year Hospital Development Plan.
Although the recurrent expenditure on medical and health services for the new financial year exceeds $60 billion, the ageing population will accelerate the growth of demands for medical services. The Government must therefore continue to inject resources to meet the public’s medical demands. The Chief Executive-elect, Carrie LAM, has undertaken in her manifesto that long-term medical policies will be formulated to make planning for the medical resources required by Hong Kong in the future. Meanwhile, she will also formulate long-term medical manpower policies, inject resources, and propose initiatives to retain talents for public medical institutions. I hope that Mrs LAM can regard these proposals as her first and foremost task and put them into implementation immediately after taking office.
On the other hand, the Government will put forward a detailed proposal on a Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme shortly. Although the Government has abandoned its subsidy option, which has made the Scheme far less attractive, I still hope that the Government can offer additional economic incentives by, for instance, proposing a tax deduction measure offering more concessions, in order to lure more people to participate. In fact, the Government needs only pay for the appetizer in order to encourage the public to pay for the main course, so that they are responsible for their own health, and the demands for public healthcare services can be reduced, too. So what is the sense of not doing that? Meanwhile, after the implementation of the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme, I hope the Government can continue to study and implement the high-risk pool proposal to increase the appeal of the Scheme, thereby inducing the diversion of more people to the private healthcare sector.
Lastly, I would like to say a few words about the Drug Formulary. Thanks to constant scientific advancements, many critical illnesses can now be treated by new wonder drugs. However, not only are these drugs very expensive, but they are also classified as self-financed drugs. In fact, people suffering from critical illnesses are already very poor, so if they are ineligible for subsidy and not very rich, they often have to use their savings made over many years or even dispose of their family assets, in order to buy drugs for treatment of their illnesses. Some people have even given up their chances of trying new drugs. I felt sad whenever I heard such stories. This is why I very much support the proposal put forward in the motion for expanding the types of subsidized drugs in the Drug Formulary of HA. I even hope that the authorities can review this system afresh to help more people in need. I so submit.