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Theme 1. Reviewing health system fragmentation
Subtheme 1.1 – Our public healthcare system is overburdened. The pluralistic
health system in Hong Kong has failed to balance resources between the
public and private healthcare sectors. The public sector, albeit with similar
physician numbers to the private sector, is burdened with a much heavier load of inpatient
care and other administrative tasks.

Stakeholders’ voices

Problems of the public system include too much
constraint, too much hard work, too bureaucratic.

Private service provider

We all know roughly only about half of the doctors in
Hong Kong are serving the Hospital Authority, which
looks after 90% of all the patients. This is unhealthy;
this is not good enough.
Professional body representative

Adding to the overburdened public sector are the unfavourable health-seeking
behaviours of Hong Kong citizens. Inaction in early manifestations of sickness
increases the costs and resources required to treat health problems at later stages.
The preference of specialists over generalists is also believed to drive up avoidable
healthcare demand in public hospitals.

Stakeholders’ voices

Hong Kong people tend to wait until really late, when their problems
are really bad, and then they go to find solutions.
NGO representative

The system is skewed towards the specialist setting of
the health system. No matter in the community, private or
public settings, specialist doctors are always dominant.
NGO representative

Hong Kong people always prefer specialists. If they cannot afford
the services provided by private specialists, they would go to the
public sector. They are not content with the care of generalists in
private clinics.

Patient group representative

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