The Hong Kong Doctors Union Limited (香港西醫聯會有限公司) has been adopted as the new name of our Association in the Extraordinary General Meeting(EGM) held on 26th March 2000. It will take about one month from the date of the EGM for the new Association’s name to become effective. In the meantime, the Council welcomes suggestions and comments from our members on the future reorganization and activities of our Association. The next EGM is scheduled to be held in end of May or early June 2000 to consider certain amendments to the Memorandum and Articles of the Association. The purposes of these amendments are to allow those colleagues with limited registration to become our members and to increase the number of Council Members in order to cope with the increasing workload of the Association.
Suggestions from members are always welcome and will surely deserve discussions by the Council for further action. Recently, the Council has set up three Ad Hoc Committees, namely:
(A) Ad Hoc Committee on Doctors' Rights and Autonomy;
(B) Ad Hoc Committee on Members' Services;
(C) Ad Hoc Committee on Public Health Education;
(A) The terms of reference for the Ad Hoc Committee on Doctors' Rights and Autonomy are:
1) To work out and keep under review the schedule of Doctors' Rights in relation to doctors' clinical practice;
2) To delineate the Rights and Autonomy of Doctors in their relationship with contract medicine including practice under managed care companies;
3) To work out and keep under review the schedule of Doctors' Rights in relation to accessibility to medical knowledge
4) To receive complaints from the profession on matters concerning Doctors' Rights and Autonomy on behalf of the Council and to suggest ways of handling those complaints.
The first job of the Committee is to tackle the intolerable delay by the Asia Medinet in reimbursement of doctors’ consultation fees. In future, if you have any complaint regarding the jeopardy of the doctors' rights and autonomy, please send it to the Committee by fax or post, or simply give a call to one of our Council Members. We assure you that we shall do all we can to put matters right.
(B) The Ad Hoc Committee on Members' Services will work on those issues that are related to members' practices. The Committee is now comparing the products and investment plans of various Mandatory Provident Fund(MPF) service providers. We shall keep you informed as soon as we have analyzed our findings. The MPF contributions are scheduled to start on 1st December 2000 that may be subject to change by the Authority. PLEASE DO NOT JOIN ANY MPF SCHEME NOW! Please watch out for the announcements from the Committee.
(C) The Ad Hoc Committee on Public Health Education is now organizing public health talks by our members to promote health education to the general public and at the same time to improve the image of the profession and our Association. We are planning to launch a series of health talks in a television station in June 2000. If you are interested in giving health talks, please write to the EDA Secretariat for enrollment as soon as possible.
Finally, I would like to call upon our talented members to enter in the Design Competition for the logo of the Hong Kong Doctors Union now. Please refer to the enclosed Circular No. 1856 for details.
Dear Members, It is now time to show your support in the Union’s affairs! Please participate in the Union’s activities! Join the Union's CME programmes! Join the Hong Kong Healthcare Association (a new name of the All Doctors' Group)! Unity is Strength!
Dr. Yeung Chiu Fat
Othercir(3)