Hong Kong’s healthcare – a free-of-charge public system complemented by a high-quality private sector – is the envy of many countries. But as the population ages and increases, the public side is struggling and the private side is having to turn patients away. Dr Walton Li explains the need for expansion in the private sector, and discusses how Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital attracts the finest doctors, nurses and support staff with its excellent training programmes and cutting-edge technology.

The New Economy: How has the healthcare sector evolved in Asia and Hong Kong in particular?

Dr Walton Li: Well Hong Kong’s healthcare is the envy of many countries because how our public system can take care of the population at free of charge. In recent times however with the increase in the population, the ageing of the population, and also increased patient demands, it’s certainly put a strain on the healthcare system. In the past the private healthcare system might be quite effective in complimenting and helping the public system, but in the recent years even the private system, like Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital has to regularly turn away patients because of our full occupancy. So we certainly hope that the government can expedite our expansion plan so we can provide more service capacity in order to help with the healthcare system for all of Hong Kong.

The New Economy: How do you ensure Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital services and practices meet patients high expectations?

Dr Walton Li: Well, you know, the key of course is how we can attract the top doctors in Hong Kong and how we do that of course is we have to give the patients and the doctors a top facility and the best equipment and we try to help the doctors by providing them well trained teams of nursing and supportive staff. We also therefore monitor for the patient satisfaction and through this monitoring system that provides a constant feedback so that we can continually improve on our services.

The New Economy: How important is it to have the latest medical technology at Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital?

Dr Walton Li: Well as you know the, for medical advancement, medical technology really goes hand in hand with it. So the technology, I think is extremely important. I would like to have our doctors to be working with the latest technology because it keeps them at what we call the cutting edge of medical science. The doctors all want to be at the cutting edge and the patients want us to be at the cutting edge of medical science. So I, yes, I think the medical equipment is extremely important in our development.

The New Economy: And you offer a range of training programmes. What are they key ones and who do they benefit?

Dr Walton Li: Traditionally, the medical students and medical offices all have exposure just to the public institutions and public services, however, we know that fifty percent or more of the doctors eventually go out into the private service and that’s why our Sanatorium and Hospital has been working with the university and other public institutions to allow for example the medical students to rotate through our hospital for two weeks so that they can have a perspective of the private medicine and of course we have some collaborative training programmes with the university and other public hospitals particularly in general surgery and ophthalmology and in orthopaedics. But the benefit also is for the hospital and for our doctors because in order for us to be involved in this teaching and training facility to be recognised as training centres by the academy of medicine and the various colleges, we have to set up our appropriate infrastructure for teaching, for professional development. So it involves the teachers from our departments, it involves our nurses, so it is at the whole surface atmosphere at the hospital. Not just to be involved in patient treatment, but also in the training and in education as well.

The New Economy: And you’ve committed to improving social wellbeing. What projects have you been involved in?

Dr Walton Li: Those of us in the healthcare profession, whether doctors or nurses, we are in this healthcare because we like to help people, we want to make a difference. So for example every year we do the Oxfam trail walk where we raise a lot of funds and in the training process they walk up and down the mountains so we also participate in other activities like visiting the elderly, we also do some charities. It provides the opportunity and a platform to work with other credible organisations and other community service organisations so that it provides our staff a chance to be working with the community doing charity work at the same time enjoying themselves with other, all sorts of activities.

The New Economy: You’re currently celebrating your ninetieth anniversary and Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital aspires to become the medical centre of excellence in Hong Kong. How do you plan to achieve this goal?

Dr Walton Li: Well being a private hospital by itself, in order for us to do that we have to move beyond just doing the healthcare service as I said and that’s why we like to set various platforms for interactions with university, local universities and international universities. Platforms for teaching, training, and even research, with these universities. So for us to move forward to the Centenary we will be progressively building these platforms for exchange and that is how we like to do it in this wise fashion, leading up to our centenary.