Plan would add four lay members to Medical Council
EMILY.TSANG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Tuesday, 19 April, 2016, 6:01pm
Civic Party legislator Kwok Ka-ki criticised the government’s proposal. Photo: Nora Tam
Doctors have expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s last-ditch effort to reform the medical watchdog and speed up misconduct complaints.
A proposal to the Legislative Council suggested adding four appointed lay members to the Medical Council. The government said that would speed up the average wait for a hearing from 58 months to 24 months.
But local doctors said the two elected members would be chosen by a “small circle” of 26 voters, and expressed worries that the council would be dominated by government supporters who would compromise its professional autonomy.
Some also feared the government would push the doctor’s licensing body to relax its exam for foreign or mainland doctors, affecting health care standards.
“If the proposal does not pass this [legislative] term, patients will continue to wait a long time [for a disciplinary hearing against doctors],” said Richard Yuen Ming-fai, permanent secretary for the food and health bureau.
The Medical Council has come under fire for a perceived lack of transparency and delays in investigating complaints.
At present, 14 of the council’s 28 members are appointed by the chief executive. Of the other 14, seven are elected by the city’s largest doctors’ group – the Medical Association – and seven are elected by registered doctors.
According to the government proposal, four additional lay members will be appointed by the government, making a total of eight lay people, expanding the membership to 32.
The proposal’s most surprising suggestion is to change two of the appointed seats into elected seats. These would be voted by 26 members of the doctors’ training school, the Academy of Medicine.
That would keep the ratio of appointed to elected members even, as requested by the sector.
Lawmaker and doctor Kwok Ka-ki criticised the government, saying that half of the 26 voters in the Academy of Medicine were not doctors.
The Public Doctors’ Association and Médecins Inspirés said the two seats should be open to “direct election” for all doctors instead of being placed under a small group of voters.
During the Legco meeting on Tuesday, lawmaker Alan Leong Ka-kit said a very respected doctor expressed fear that the chief executive would one day open the local market to doctors from the mainland, undermining the quality of health care in the city.
Yuen rejected that, adding that medical standards are safeguarded by the council. He said he hoped the government would continue to collect opinion on the proposal, and aimed to finalise the direction of the bill in two weeks.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1937120/doctors-criticise-governments-plans-medical-watchdog
