Thank you, Deputy President. The subject of today’s debate is “Actively building Hong Kong into Asia’s health and medical innovation hub”. I believe Members may recall that Chief Executive John LEE announced a number of healthcare policies in his 2023-2024 Policy Address and one of them was developing into a health and medical innovation hub and establishing a drug approval authority based on “primary evaluation” in the long run.

The concept of “building Hong Kong into a health and medical innovation hub” was pioneered 20 years ago by Mr TUNG Chee-hwa, the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Mr TUNG mentioned at the time that Hong Kong’s education and healthcare were at highly professional levels, and that while meeting the demands of Hong Kong people, they could be further developed into industries to provide services to residents in the Mainland and the Asian region. The second Chief Executive, Mr Donald TSANG, mentioned that apart from the four pillar industries, six industries were crucial to the development of our economy, and among them, the medical industry should be developed. The third Chief Executive, Mr LEUNG Chun-ying, mentioned the establishment of an Innovation and Technology Bureau to facilitate the relevant development. The fourth Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie LAM, said that in response to the National 14th Five-Year Plan, she proposed the setting up of an InnoLife Healthtech Hub in the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park in Hetao.

From the relevant proposals made by the former Chief Executives in their policy addresses, we noticed that they gradually explicated and particularized the concept of “health and medical innovation”. The concept of “health and medical innovation” proposed by the incumbent Chief Executive John LEE is broader than those of his predecessors and requires more healthcare staff.

Broadly speaking, health and medical innovation is defined as the process of introducing new ideas, new methods, new technologies, new products or new services to improve the delivery of healthcare services, the effectiveness of patient treatment and the overall efficiency of the healthcare sector. Health and medical innovation covers extensive progress in various healthcare areas, including medical devices, drugs, biotechnology, information technology, telemedicine and digital healthcare solutions. But I believe that health and medical innovation should be people-oriented and developing into a hub requires the support of sufficient doctors and healthcare professionals at all levels, both of which have not been mentioned in the wording of Dr Dennis LAM’s motion.

In this regard, I urge Chief Executive Mr John LEE to formulate a comprehensive talent development strategy for Hong Kong, including the establishment of systematic career development pathways for researchers, research coordinators, research nurses and various kinds of supporting staff. I understand that one major problem faced by Hong Kong is that the number of doctors has long been out of proportion to the number of patients. There are only 2 doctors per 1 000 people, and the increase in the number of doctors lags far behind our population growth. Although our population growth has slowed down, the number of elderly people is increasing. To alleviate these problems, I think we should at least adopt short-term and long-term approaches.

In the short term, I urge the Government to expeditiously and comprehensively introduce large numbers of overseas doctors and healthcare personnel at various levels. In the case of doctors, for example, the provision of doctor training in Hong Kong by only the faculties of medicine of the University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong is obviously insufficient. Even the addition of a faculty of medicine to be set up in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is just like distant water that cannot put out a nearby fire. Therefore, I would like to thank the former Chief Executives, Mr LEUNG Chun-ying and Mrs Carrie LAM, for supporting the Liberal Party’s proposal on reforming the Medical Council of Hong Kong and introducing overseas doctors to alleviate the acute shortage of doctors.

As for the long-term goal, I think we should make great efforts in nurturing young talents, and adopt innovative methods such as creating the post of clinical medical scientists and expanding the Clinical Research Fellowship Scheme to allow doctors to carry out clinical services and research in the course of work. In addition, more professional training opportunities should be provided for research supporting staff to receive systematic and accredited training. Higher education and specialist training should be optimized from the earliest stages of career development to include more research elements and programmes and provide continuous research experiences, so as to nurture research-minded healthcare personnel.