I write this message while on board the plane to
Meeting with our Secretary for Food and Health, a better title according to Dr. York Chow, on 20th August 2007 is well planned beforehand. Besides Council Members, we have invited two of our members to attend too. They are : Dr. Luk Wai Leung who has helped the Union in exposing the wrong doings of HMOs to the news media and Dr. Tang Wai Choi who helps the Union in the development of Information Communication Technology. It is lucky that I do not have to excuse myself from participating in the meeting. It is just good enough that I still have 2 hours to pack my baggage before leaving home with my family members to the airport 7 hours after the late dinner meeting.
Besides congratulating Dr. Chow for being appointed again Secretary for Food and Health, we have discussed with him on the following issues:-
As usual, there are confidential stuffs that he politely regretted that he could only disclose to us when the time is ripe.
We asked Dr. Chow for his views on the report on Preliminary Findings on Development and Financing of Hong Kong・s Future Health Care presented by The Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre and he commented that the proposal from the Bureau would not take too much weight from that of the Bauhinia・s. The proposal on Health Care Reform would not be released before the consultation on Constitutional Development has been completed. The Chief Executive of the HKSAR Government would have the final say on the time of release of the proposal. I do believe that the Tsang・s Government is much more clever by testing the waters before the formal proposal is released. I imagine that the proposal on Health Care reform would not be released until early next year. As such, I requested Dr. Chow to meet our members in one of the Sunday Afternoon symposia to hear our members・ views once the proposal is publicized and he tentatively agreed.
Confirmed by Dr. Chow, the amount of increase in public health expenditure (up to 17% from 15%) would not go to the accounts of the Hospital Authority. Instead, such money should follow the patient for Health care, but in what way was, according to Dr. Chow, still confidential. However, he reassured that his plan would be beneficial to us, private doctors. As far as the concept of Primary Care Authority as previously reported elsewhere, his commented that as long as he was the Secretary for Food and Health, he, as the Government official, would not like to regulate the practice of the medical practitioners, and he believed in straight Professional Autonomy.
According to Dr. Chow, similar Professional Autonomy should be allowed in the Medical Council of Hong Kong (MCHK). Even though he appointed half of the members of the MCHK, he said he would not interfere with the business of the Medical Council. However, if the Profession wants to change the present composition of the Medical Council to doctor members to be totally elected by the Profession, this would create a loop-hole for the public especially the Legislative Councilors to interfere with the running of the Medical Council by introducing more lay members, including some with strong political affiliation, to the Council. I agree with Dr. Chow that we should carefully work out the logistics before erring on the wrong side thus putting the whole profession under tight scrutiny by persons not in our profession which ultimately would prove no good to our patients.
As far as HMO regulation is concerned, we again stressed the bitterness of those colleagues working under such HMO schemes and put forward again our proposal of Incorporation of Medical Practice and Licensing mechanism for HMO contracts to make sure that doctors serving the HMO would not be ill treated. Dr. Chow promised there would be good news in this aspect soon. As regards to the issue of CME linking to the practicing license, he stressed that he would leave it to the profession to decide.
During the meeting, we handed in our counterproposal on ways to decrease dispensing mishaps (as printed on page xx of this bulletin) and our draft of poster on safe dispensing guidelines for our members. (Enclosed with this bulletin) Dr. Chow was interested to know who initiated such harsh conditions for the profession and he was informed accordingly.
Regarding the development of e-Health, Dr. Chow thanked us for joining the steering committee and hoped that the project could be implemented. We stressed that since ultimately the health of every patient or citizen in Hong Kong would be served through such a system, the running cost should be borne by taxpayers and not by doctors alone. Dr. Chow gave an encouraging reply this time by saying that the initial set up fee should be borne by the Government and he would like to convince the Government to shoulder the future running and maintenance of the e-Health platform for health data transfer. One thing we agreed is there should be guaranteed security.
The request for increase in number of medical students by the Hospital Authority was discussed. Dr. Chow reassured that the process would be long term and the increase would be minimum. We explained our stand of opposing such increase as evidenced by the decrease in the number of consultations per day by each private doctor from the surveys we have done in the past years. We informed Dr. Chow that the number of daily attendance in each private clinic has dropped from 38 in last year survey to 30 this year.
The atmosphere of the meeting is overall warm and friendly and I am lucky that I can manage to conduct the meeting from 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm which is good enough for me to dash home to pack my stuffs for next day・s voyage. I do hope that by this message, members would understand better the views of Government officials on such important issues affecting our profession and practice.
Dr. Yeung Chiu Fat Henry