Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ15: Hospital Authority Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme

Following is a question by the Hon Michael Mak and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (October 15):

Question :

The Hospital Authority ("HA") launched the Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme at the end of last year for full-time non-civil-servant staff, whereas the second Voluntary Retirement Scheme introduced by the Government at the beginning of this year was open to civil servants of the HA and the Department of Health (DH). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the respective numbers of staff in the medical, nursing and allied health grades in the above two organisations who have been approved to leave their service in respect of each of the above two voluntary retirement schemes, and the following figures in connection with those numbers:

(i) breakdowns of the numbers by the ranks of the staff concerned and the types of medical institutions to which they belonged;

(ii) the respective percentages of the numbers in the total numbers of applicants, and the relevant percentages in respect of each grade and rank; and

(iii) the respective percentages of the numbers in the total numbers of staff, and the relevant percentages in respect of each grade and rank; and

(b) in view of the huge pressure brought by the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on the medical system of Hong Kong, will the authorities concerned consider retaining those staff who have been approved to leave their service; if not, of the plan it will put in place to ensure sufficient health care staff to meet the service needs when there is an epidemic?

Reply :

(a) A total of 244 civil servants in the nursing and allied health grades working in the Department of Health (DH) and 389 civil servants in the medical, nursing and allied health grades working in the Hospital Authority (HA) have been approved to retire under the second Voluntary Retirement (VR) Scheme of the Government. Breakdowns of the relevant figures for DH and HA are shown in Annexes A and B respectively.

HA has also launched a Voluntary Early Retirement Programme (VERP) for its full-time non-civil service staff. Under that programme, a total of 678 HA staff in the medical, nursing and allied health grades have been approved to retire. A breakdown of the relevant figures is shown in Annex C.

(b) DH and HA will closely monitor the manpower situation following the departure of staff under the two voluntary retirement schemes. The release of staff under the schemes will be staggered to ensure that the provision of health care services will not be unduly affected. We will meet the service demand through service re-engineering, re-deployment of the serving staff and adopting alternative modes of service delivery. Training will be provided for serving staff to facilitate their redeployment and job transition. We may also consider recruiting non-civil service contract staff to strengthen manpower support in specific areas, where necessary. In addition, DH and HA will explore ways to develop closer collaboration with the private health care sector and non-government organisations in the voluntary sector in case of an epidemic as recommended by the SARS Expert Committee.

End/Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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