ELIZABETH CHEUNG AND LAI YING-KIT
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 October, 2015, 7:01am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 October, 2015, 11:14am
Dr Donald Li (inset) gives backing to the doctors' sit-in today at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Photos: May Tse
More medical heavyweights threw their weight behind the public doctors’ protest today, as the president of the specialist training institution came out in support of the fight for an extra 3 per cent pay rise.
The sit-in takes place in the main lobby of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei at 3pm today.
Dr Donald Li Kwok-tung, president of the Academy of Medicine, told the South China Morning Post that current salary levels did not give enough recognition to doctors.
“[The salary] doesn’t reflect the extent of dedication to work. Doctors are undervalued,” Li said.
He said most doctors were responsible for patients’ conditions even after working hours, putting them literally in a 24-hour work mode.
“In general, civil servants can wait till the next day [to continue business], but it is hard for doctors who are dealing with lives.”
In general, civil servants can wait till the next day [to continue business], but it is hard for doctors who are dealing with lives
DR DONALD LI
He urged public hospital management to be more transparent over the responsibilities and salaries of doctors.
Former Hospital Authority chairman Anthony Wu Ting-yuk said the doctors’ expectations of increased pay were reasonable because their workload was heavy and salaries were lower than the levels offered in the private market.
"I think it is absolutely reasonable for them to expect a pay adjustment," he said during a Commercial Radio talk show on Wednesday.
Wu, who served as authority chief from 2004 to 2013, said that when the authority was established in the early 1990s, there was an understanding with the government that it should maintain doctors’ pay at levels close to civil servants.
He also said the authority had been following a government-commissioned pay trend survey, which serves as a benchmark for civil servants’ pay adjustments, every year.
Wu said the government would not have to give extra funds to the authority to foot the bill for the pay rise, which reportedly would cost HK$2 million. He said the authority had the money for the rise and the government only needed to give it the nod.
"I think the Hospital Authority should ask the government to give it flexibility to perform this [pay] adjustment," Wu said.
More than 1,000 people have signed an online petition to urge the Hospital Authority to give an additional pay rise backdated for one year, similar to what senior civil servants are receiving.
Patient concern group Hong Kong Patients’ Voices also supported the sit-in, describing it as “shocking and disappointing” when the government and the authority ignore demands from public doctors.
The group was confident that the action would not interfere with visits by patients to hospitals.
While authority chief executive Dr Leung Pak-yin will attend, Secretary for Food and Health Dr Ko Wing-man, who has expressed concern about the issue, has not yet decided whether to take part.
Other prominent medical figures, including Professor Lo Chung-mau, head of surgery at the University of Hong Kong, also backed the doctors’ action.
The 90-minute sit-in will begin with a speech by Dr Pierre Chan Pui-yin, president of the Public Doctors’ Association, followed by opinions shared by other doctors and responses from authority representatives. Participating doctors, who should not have any duties at that time, will be asked to wear white robes during the protest.
Speaking on the same radio show as Wu, Chan said most doctors hoped to follow the practice. He said that in 2007, doctors signed to follow the adjustment levels proposed in the civil service pay survey even though it led to a pay cut.
Chan said doctors were worried the authority was seeking to scrap the practice.
"The existing mechanism has been working for the past 20 years. That mechanism is for us to follow civil servants," Chan said.
"We do not want to argue every year like buying vegetables. We don’t have the time," he said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1870113/doctoral-support-more-hong-kong-heavyweights-back
