The most uplifting news recently was that concerning 4-month-old Lai Tsz-hei. The baby girl, diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, had suffered heart failure. She underwent transplant surgery at the Children’s Hospital on Dec 16. The successful operation could not have been carried out without the heart donated by and delivered from the Chinese mainland.
This “miracle” shines a spotlight on Hong Kong’s medical standards, which again prove to be among the best in the world. When it comes to organ donations, however — especially of hearts — we are limited by not only our small 7.4 million population, but a customary reluctance to donate organs that leaves us way down the international ranking.
In the case of little Tsz-hei, relentless but low-profile support from the various mainland authorities helped facilitate the search for an appropriate heart, and then, when one was found, the delivery of that heart to the boundary with Hong Kong which contributed to saving her life. While we are, of course, over the moon at the miracle for Tsz-hei, we hope that any future medical needs in Hong Kong and the mainland will benefit from a built-in mechanism and capacity to save patients, rather than relying on ad hoc and sometimes last-minute collaboration.
Hong Kong needs mainland supplies for a number of daily necessities, with fresh water being the most obvious. Tsz-hei’s case shows that we also need the mainland in medical healthcare. A broader and long-term or even permanent official mechanism for both sides to regularly exchange knowledge, skills and resources including organs for transplant will be helpful. But the contribution shouldn’t be one-way or limited to organ transplants.
It could be extended to primary healthcare, an area in which Hong Kong has achieved a more advanced status. By extending cooperation and contributing to the mainland, Hong Kong will manage to ease its integration into the Chinese mainland’s overall development.
In fact, exchanges on primary healthcare have been going on for decades, though on a small scale and without as much success as initially expected.
One area for hope, though, concerns primary healthcare in Nansha. Located at the southernmost end of Guangzhou, Nansha district is home to a population of over 846,000 and brims with opportunities for Hong Kong people. It boasts convenient transport links to Hong Kong (35 minutes by high-speed train), the newly opened campuses of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Minxin School for Hong Kong children, an international cruise terminal, affordable living and plenty of green space. It offers concessionary Hong Kong tax rates to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region residents and corporations and is expected to attract a considerable population of Hong Kong residents.
In Nansha, the GOLD (General Practice Oriented Learning and Development) program — an initiative from one of Hong Kong’s biggest health maintenance organizations — is setting standards.
Here, and in other parts of the country, too, GOLD has helped train more than 1,000 primary care doctors and nurses since 2017. The program trains mainland primary care physicians to deliver international best practices for advanced primary care development in the country.
Under the aegis of this program, an outpatient clinic was opened this month — the first fully-owned Hong Kong outpatient clinic in Nansha. Its goal is to serve both Hong Kong and local residents living and working in the district.
The program operators are now lobbying Hong Kong’s Department of Health to allow Hong Kong people living in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to be able to use their annual HK$2,000 ($256) elderly healthcare vouchers on the mainland.
Another example of integration comes from Hainan. The central government plans to turn the 35,000 square-kilometer southern island into the world’s largest free-trade port by 2035.
On the medical front, the Hainan Boao Lecheng Pilot Zone is developing the island into an international medical tourism destination. It aims to provide services such as clinical treatment, professionally assisted rehabilitation, and medical research and development.
One Hong Kong medical technology company has already gained permission to import pharmaceutical supplies and medical equipment, including some that are approved for use in other countries but not yet approved or registered in the mainland, into this pilot zone. The same company also helps Hong Kong doctors register for practice in the mainland.
In order to fully integrate into the mainland’s medical and healthcare development, we need to satisfy five main and officially approved flows. These are: that medical qualifications of personnel be recognized by the mainland side; that medicines and medical devices be approved for use; the uninhibited sharing of patient information; free flow of capital investment; and, finally, mutual insurance policy recognition.
Stumbling blocks along the road to full integration include that many Hong Kong medical insurance policies currently are not claimable on the mainland — recognition of which would benefit countless local residents.
As for medical practitioners who are used to professional indemnity cover in Hong Kong, many will discover that the coverage does not extend to the mainland when they practice there — a situation that needs urgent attention.
To facilitate the integration process, former chief executive Leung Chun-ying has set up two committees — the Consultative Committee on Guangdong-Hong Kong Cooperation (Guangzhou-Nansha), and the Hong Kong-Hainan Economic Cooperation Advisory Committee.
Helping to explain mainland policies to potential investors and the capabilities of the relevant sectors of Hong Kong, and facilitate information flow, these committees aim to assist Hong Kong companies wanting to invest in or develop projects — including medical ones — in Nansha and Hainan.
Many Hong Kong youths disagree with, reject or even fear the mainland. So, attention needs to be paid to their hearts, as much as to their minds, in any integration mechanism.
We need to nurture a better understanding of and affection for the motherland in our doctors and medical personnel, too. A structured approach would be useful, perhaps including the requirement that medical students spend, say, a school term on the mainland, during which they would study at a mainland medical school, enabling them to pick up different skills, and grow a deeper understanding of Chinese culture.
In November 2018, President Xi Jinping outlined to Hong Kong delegates who were in Beijing to celebrate the 40 years of reform and opening-up his four new hopes for the city, including that Hong Kong integrates more proactively into the country’s development. This was reiterated by Premier Li Keqiang at the recent reporting session by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in Beijing.
Li said he hoped the HKSAR government would leverage Hong Kong’s strengths to serve the needs of the country, and give full play to the unique advantages of the city when integrating with the country’s development.
The message is loud and clear: Hong Kong needs to integrate with and contribute to the motherland. In doing so, we stand to benefit, by optimizing our own strengths, including those in the medical sector.
The author is president of the Wisdom Hong Kong think tank.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.