Letter to Dr. Leung PY about 5-year post fellowship Associate Consultant (AC) promotion exercise

10 August 2012
Dr. Leung Pak Yin, JP
Chief Executive, Hospital Authority

Dear Dr. Leung,
Complaint letter from frontline residents

We have recently received complaints from our members concerning about the 5-year post fellowship Associate Consultant (AC) promotion exercise jointly agreed by HAHO and doctor unions in the Task Force in 2011 and we would like to direct it to you for your further action.

The aim of the above mentioned exercise is to improve the morale among the frontline medical staff and to reduce the problem of brain drain. However, after more than a year of implementation, problems arise. One major problem of this exercise is that it runs in the form of batch. Instead of being promoted automatically, those qualified candidates need to wait for recruitment exercises which run yearly in July. Since different specialties have difference examination date, such arrangement inevitably incur the problem of unfairness among different specialties. Doctors who have their exit examinations completed after July will have a significant delay in promotion compared with those working in specialties that have their exit examinations conducted before July. Such difference creates discrimination and it undoubtedly further jeopardizes the morale among medical staff and the trust to our HAHO management.

In order to resolve the problem, we suggest fine-tuning the current AC promotion exercise as continuous basic. The AC promotion process is able to be smooth out if it automatically proceeds within 6 months after passing the fellowship examination in the respective specialty. The alternative is to practice the AC promotion biannually. Such improvement should minimally increase the administrative burden as there is merely paper work without interview arrangement.

We would be most grateful if you would seriously consider our suggestion and reply us as soon as possible so that this matter could be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Yours sincerely,



___________________
Dr. Fu Kam Fung, Kenneth
President, Hong Kong Public Doctors’ Association