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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Joseph Lee and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung (in the absence of Secretary for Food and Health), in the Legislative Council today (May 14):
Question:
Regarding the problem of departure of nurses in the Hospital Authority (HA) in recent years, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the respective numbers of general nurses and psychiatric nurses in various HA's hospital clusters who departed in the past five years, and the respective numbers of newly employed nurses to fill the vacancies concerned (please provide the figures in Annex 1);
(b) whether HA has filled all of the above vacancies; if not, the reasons for that; and
(c) the measures to be adopted by HA in the next five years for improving the situation of departure of its nurses?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The numbers of general nurses and psychiatric nurses in the respective hospital clusters who departed in the past five years are set out in Annex 2. The Hospital Authority (HA) fills the vacancies of nurses at basic ranks mainly through the recruitment of nursing graduates while the vacancies of nurses at other ranks are filled by internal promotion. The numbers of newly employed nurses in the respective hospital clusters under HA in the past five years are set out in Annex 3.
(b) HA was unable to fill all of the nurse vacancies mainly because the number of nurses that could be recruited each year was affected by the overall number of nursing graduates available and the market demand and supply. Besides, keen competition in the job market has also created recruitment difficulties.
(c) HA had in the past taken positive steps to formulate policies for retention of its nurses. For instance, the entry pay for nurses was raised by two points starting from October 2007. Also, as a form of recognition and encouragement of their continued service in HA, an additional increment was granted to nurses who joined HA between 2002 and 2005.
HA will continue to strengthen the measures for retention of its nursing staff through comprehensive strategies. These measures include: (i) providing training for enrolled nurses and registered nurses to increase nursing manpower. For example, HA has planned to provide training for 480 nurse students and recruit 690 nursing graduates in 2008-09; (ii) relieving nurses from non-nursing work; (iii) improving the facilities regularly used by nurses so as to reduce their workload; (iv) allowing greater flexibility in the recruitment of nurses such as counting recognised working experience in terms of months, setting up of a pool of manpower for nurses, hiring more part-time nurses, etc; and (v) implementing of a career development structure for nurses by making available to nurses serving in HA two avenues for career advancement, one in the clinical stream and the other in management stream, so as to broaden their career prospects. Besides, after consultation with nursing staff, HA will formulate a series of measures to enhance the implementation of the career development structure for nurses. These measures include providing more career advancement avenues for nurses in the clinical stream, strengthening clinical supervision and enhancing the roles and functions of nurses. HA will announce the relevant details upon completion of the internal vetting and approving procedures. It will also conduct a review on the effectiveness of these measures and the way forward having regard to the service demand.
Ends/Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:20
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