HONG KONG: With the solicitation of expressions of interest for the development of private hospitals at four sites, 1,500 to 2,000 more beds and about 1,000 to 2,000 new job opportunities are expected to be provided in eight to 10 years.

To increase the overall capacity of the health care system and to address imbalances between private and public hospitals, the government is reserving four sites for interested parties to develop private hospitals, in Tai Po, Tseung Kwan-O, Tung Chung and Wong Chuk Hang.

"We hope that through the promotion of private hospital development, we can increase the overall capacity of the health care system of Hong Kong, and address the imbalance between the public and private sectors in hospital services to cope with the increasing service demand," said Secretary for Food and Health York Chow, adding, "We also want to ensure that our health care system can provide the public, particularly the middle class, with more choices and affordable high-quality private hospital services."

The solicitation of expressions of interest will help the government collect information needed to work out the appropriate land arrangements for the sites, including the means and timing for land development, the detailed special requirements and the land premium.

The government is receiving expressions of interest until March next year. No land premium is set at the moment, as the government wants to know what types of services could be provided by the operators and whether they would make certain concessions, particularly regarding the middle class and people with low incomes.

There are seven requirements for the development of the four sites. One of the requirements is that the land should primarily be used for hospital services and supporting facilities. Another requirement emphasizes hospital fees, stating that the hospitals should be operated with price transparency, such that comprehensive fee information is made available to the public.

Chow emphasized that the promotion of private hospital development will not hamper the public's chances of using public medical services and that resources to be spent on improving public medical services and implementing service reform will not be cut.

"The government is committed to increasing health care spending to 17 percent of overall recurrent government expenditure by 2012," said Chow, adding, "We will also increase the recurrent funding for the Hospital Authority by about HK$870 million per year in the three-year period from October 2009 till December 2011 for strengthening and improving services to cope with medical needs."

Chow said if everything went smoothly the first hospital would be operating in five to six years and hopefully all of them would be in service in eight to ten years.

Some legislators have expressed concern that there won't be enough medical workers to staff more hospitals. Chow said that more resources would be made available to train health care workers by the Hospital Authority. He was also hopeful that Hong Kong will attract medical expertise from abroad.

(HK Edition 12/15/2009 page1)