There is a serious shortage of medical professionals in Hong Kong. Some people even relate it to the more and more frequent medical blunders.
Write an article explaining the reasons for the lack of medical professionals and the potential consequences. Suggest possible remedies to tackle this problem. Give your article a title. (S.6 Final Exam Topic, 2010-11)
Insufficient medical professionals in Hong Kong
Decades ago, working in public hospitals implied good prospects – high monthly salary, stable working hours and significant social status. They used to be respected by their patients and the general public. Today, the pendulum has swung to the other side. Doctors endure long working hours. Much pressure is exerted on them to force them to work round the clock but still retaining high working efficiency. Therefore, the number of doctors leaving public hospitals has skyrocketed, and there lacks an enough number of medical professionals, as a result. Why does it happen?
The long working hours siggest the unpalatable reality of the lack in medical professionals. In recent months, doctors and other medical professionals of public hospitals have erupted their mounting discontent over long working hours. According to them, they have to be on-call for 30 hours per shift. What being more shocking is that for every month, they have to work four to five shifts. So acute is the problem of long working hours that recently a doctor died from tiredness when he was on-duty. Students cannot revise their textbooks non-stop for 30 hours, and never can a secretary continue to type documents for 30 hours… No one can withstand such long working hours. No wonder why more and more medical professionals escape from the stuffy, pressurized environment.
In addition, the medical system in Hong Kong itself is the blackcloth of this unpleasant situation. Under dificient budget of medical resources, different departments in a hospital have to survive through an “implicit but explicit” “demand-creating” mechanism. So many people have been complaining that whenever they visited the hospital, the lengths of consultation time were no more than 5 minutes. It is because the departments have to last and gain resources by generating a higher demand for their department services. Therefore, the doctors tend not to cure the illness of the patients completely, so that the demand for service of the latter is created. It can explain why some ambitious, responsible medical professionals leave the public hospital to chase for their goals and ideals, and why there is a lack of them in public hospitals.
A sharp reduction in medical professionals in public hospitals has been the result of the incomprehensive medical system in Hong Kong. The potential consequences can never be neglected.
First and foremost, more frequent medical blunders are resulted. Due largely to a shortage in medical professionals in public hospitals, the remaining doctors have to work more intensively. They may have to work longer hours and more shifts per month. Without enough rest, the doctors cannot have sharp minds to make accurate medical decisions and work carefully. Therefore, accidents and tragedies attributed to fatigue are resulted, ranging from leaving a glove or some cotton slices in the patients’ stomaches, to the deaths of patients. The threat of medical blunders cannot be overlooked.
Moreover, Hong kong’s prestige and reputation of top medical services are harmed. Increasing number of pregnant women from the Mainland and Macau giving birth to their babies in Hong Kong can be a proof of medical superiority in Hong Kong. If more medical professionals resign from their posts in public hospitals, the workload and pressure of remaining doctors will increase drastically, which, in turn, may cause even more medical blunders. Therefore outside Hong Kong, and even inside Hong Kong faith in Hong Kong doctors may be eroded, thus harming the current reputation of our medical services here.
Public hospitals are the places where people, regardless of their wealth and social status, are cured. They are not the hell for doctors and patients. Hence, measures should be adopted to relieve the pressure.
The immediate remedy is to employ foreign doctors, especially those graduated from world-renowned universities or are trained in famous hospitals. It is because they have the qualifications and experiences in handling cases. As long as they collaborate with local doctors and medical professionals, they can get used to the common practices in Hong Kong’s medical Industry. They can immediately solve the problem of shortage of doctors in public hospitals. This should ensure enough doctors to meet daily service needs.
A long-term solution is to increase the number of admission quotas of Medical Departments of local universities. Today, only the HKU and CUHK are admitting students into their Medical Departments. If more students are trained to be doctors, in about 4 years, the number of doctors in Hong Kong is expected to increase, thus relieving the pressure of acute shortage of doctors.
Since the budget for medicine and hospital can hardly be increased significantly in a few years, the core problem of “demand-creation” is not expected to be solved easily. However, increasing the supply of doctors in public hospitals is the most crucial way-out to the current difficulty. Moreover, let us not forget the hard work of the doctors, who work hard to help us keep healthy; we should show more respect to them and care for their problem.