14 June 1997

Housemen Saga lead to Manpower Planning Concern

(Keywords:- houseman, contract terms, specialist training, funding, manpower needs)

          To budding medical doctors now doing their internship, 1 July 1997 should be a day for jubilation. Not just because it is the day Hong Kong returns to China, but more importantly it is the day these Housemen assume full medical registration, the day they could look forward to yet a further training job and onto their road of ideals.

          But it has not been that rosy for the last few years. With fewer people leaving jobs in the public health care institutions, new jobs for these fresh graduates are difficult to come by. To wit, the annual wastage rate of public medical staff in the late 80s almost reached 20% compared with the rate of 6% today. 1997 is an exceptional bad year. It was reported that at least a third of these fresh graduates would be left high and dry.

          The ¡§forever willing to please¡¨ Hospital Authority took no time to step in, and nobly and benevolently announced that jobs would be forthcoming but could well be offered on a contract basis. Let us hope that extra budget for these ¡§new¡¨ posts would be available from the Government and that the HA will not be  forced to fork out the sum by either cutting down necessary services or by channelling money from other grades to that of the medical staff!

          Regrettably, experience in the past few years indicated that HA was always being persuaded or pressurised by Government to absorb the extra personnel yet with no extra funding. With the suggestion that some of the newly created posts are on a contractual basis for professional training purpose, there should be no more excuse for Government in not providing extra money. More, the Administration must be warned against trying to use contract term posts to reduce the establishment of permanent posts for existing and future new services.  For such act, amounts to mislead the current staff and would only lead to morale deterioration.

          Employment of personnel for training on a contract basis do have its value. If designed properly, such posts can serve as a good means to equip young doctors with more in-depth knowledge and clinical experience, and to help  developing local specialists training programmes. Take ¡§family medicine¡¨ as an example, part of the training programme demands the trainees to rotate through a two year period of hospital practices, which the HA contract can well provide.

          Yet, it is still not plain sailing for the new interns. For other than being offered a ¡§carrot¡¨, this ¡§carrot¡¨ came with a ¡§stick¡¨. As reported, these new doctors were being ¡§threatened¡¨ not to talk to the press: ¡§If you speak to the press, the Vacancy Notification Circular would not be issued,¡¨ a very senior HA head office executive was quoted as a threat. As expected, the profession rightly so stood up in horror. For not only is such a statement uncalled for, if what is reported is anything but the truth, then it borders into infringement of the right of expression. Worse, it amounts to employment blackmail. The HA Board is well advised to conduct a full investigation to put the staff and the public at rest. Furthermore, consideration should be taken whether the issue falls into the remit of the Ombudsman.

          On the brighter side of things, the well timed remarks by the Secretary for Education and Manpower that the intake of medical students to our two medical schools should be reviewed is very much welcome. As early as 1992, the need for a proper assessment of manpower demand before proceeding with manpower planning has been suggested, but as usual, such suggestion fell on deaf ears of the Government. The Secretary¡¦s remarks, though too late and too light,  signifies a right step in the proper direction.

(Hongkong Standard)