Staff shortages to mar Hong Kong’s public hospitals as silver tsunami looms: BMI

The public sector treats 90% of yearly cases.

Mass staff shortages are one of the laundry list of headwinds Hong Kong’s public hospitals are projected to face as it is engulfed by an inevitable ageing population.

According to analysts from BMI Research, 9 out of 10 of the region’s yearly cases are treated by the public sector despite employing less than half of the industry’s doctors.

This results in the Hospital Authority having a massive shortfall of approximately 300 doctors as of 2015, BMI said.

And it’s not just the patients who are ageing, as BMI adds that the medical profession is not spared against Father Time.

“A 2012 health manpower survey noting that the median age of doctors is 47 years old. This creates the risk that a retirement of a sizeable proportion of the physicians in Hong Kong will exacerbate the shortfall of physicians in the administrative region,” BMI Research said.

To address this, Hong Kong authorities have initiated a new scheme costing HKD570mn (USD73mn) that allows doctors to stay beyond the age of 60.