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Ella Lee

The head of Tuen Mun Hospital said that at least 10 senior doctors had agreed to take on more night shifts over the next few months to help cope with a potentially crippling manpower shortage.
'We can foresee that the manpower shortage will get more serious starting April because doctors who have already tendered their resignation will leave by then,'  Dr Albert Lo Chi-yuen, the hospital's chief executive, said yesterday.
'We are pleased to get help from senior doctors to share the night shifts.' 
The move came as health chief Dr York Chow Yat-ngok  urged senior management and doctors to work on the frontline to help relieve overworked junior staff.
Doctors throughout the public hospital system have threatened sit-ins and work-to-rules if the Hospital Authority fails to tackle the staffing crisis within two weeks.
Five per cent of doctors employed by the Hospital Authority have quit so far this year,   with many leaving for the private sector. The departures mean heavier workloads for those who remain. 
At Tuen Mun Hospital, the major acute-care hospital in New Territories West, 25 per cent of junior doctors at its internal medicine department have quit since January last year. That leaves one doctor responsible for 200 patients at night and doctors must frequently work long shifts.
Junior doctors have to shoulder seven to eight night shifts a month. Before each of these shifts, they work a 10-hour day shift. Then, after a break of just four hours, they must start a 14-hour shift that lasts through the night and the following morning. 
Chow, the secretary for food and health, said he was very concerned about doctors' demands for better work conditions and their threats of industrial action. 
'Our doctors are very professional and they also have a very strong compassionate attitude towards their patients,' Chow said yesterday. 'I do not think they would like to endanger the safety of patients in our hospitals. 
'I think it is important for the management to work together with the frontline to ensure a suitable resolution. While there is a serious wastage in the frontline, senior staff should give help ... I hope that the Tuen Mun Hospital can use this principle to tackle the problem.'
Chow said the number of medical graduates would increase from the current 250 to 320 by 2013 and that officials should consider increasing that number even further.
The Public Doctors' Association will hold a forum on Tuesday at Queen Elizabeth Hospital to allow doctors from all public hospitals to express grievances about their working conditions. Association president  Loletta So Kit-ying  said it was good that Chow had expressed concerns about staff shortages. 'We want to see a clear timetable and concrete interim and long-term measures to improve work conditions,'  she said.
In other moves to cope with the shortage, Tuen Mun Hospital will  deploy doctors from other departments to help the internal medicine department and offer extra compensation to extraordinarily busy doctors. Five retired doctors will help treat outpatients. The hospital wants to recruit at least 12 new doctors in July but is uncertain about filling all posts, hospital officials said. 
Hospital chief executive Lo said he took responsibility for the discontent among the hospital doctors. 'Of course I have the responsibility ... we should have a better communication with staff and given them a better support,' he said.
'At the same time we also face an across-the-board doctors wastage problem for all public hospitals. We are in close discussion with frontline staff and department heads to work out a solution.'
The Frontline Doctors' Union called on the Hospital Authority not only to create senior posts to allow more promotions, but to introduce  thorough evaluation of department heads, which would involve feedback  from  peers, superiors, subordinates and clients.
'Many doctors leave because they feel they are suppressed by their department heads, who have too much power,' said Ernie Lo Chi-fung,  a former union president. 
'Staff should have a say in evaluating the department heads' performance.' 
Meanwhile, Hospital Authority chairman Anthony Wu Ting-yuk and chief executive Leung Pak-yin  have been visiting different hospitals in the past week to reassure staff and get their views on what can be done to solve problems and improve the city's public health care system.



Senior staff rally to share load of hospital doctors