[shri]

This was one of the things that inspired us to create geobaby.com as a community site for parents in Hong Kong and beyond.

I am writing this letter to express some opinions about news items published in the SCMP over the last month, related to layoffs and pay cuts in some of the private hospitals in Hong Kong.

We had a baby delivered a month ago and I was left filled with respect for the nurses at the Adventist. They treated us with utmost professionalism. Having heard how loudly my son can cry at times, I have, in hindsight, developed a healthy respect for these nurses who have to deal with several newborns at the same time. Unfortunately they are left facing paycuts and layoffs, while most of the doctors are left unscathed.

When the layoffs at the Matilda were announced, I read with a lot of amusement, complaints from the private hospitals that they were under pressure from the government hospitals and their subsidies. I would like to recommend that these hospitals look inwards and study the problem, which in my opinion is the fact that they do not know who their customers are. Are their customers the doctors who bring and refer patients to the hospitals or are they the patients. In the IT industry, we would term them as systems integrators and end users. We protect our end-users and work hard to make sure that the systems integrators provide our customers with the best possible service at reasonable prices.

The private hospitals in Hong Kong allow their doctors to double and quadruple their rates depending on the type of room the patient has elected to stay. If a doctor charges, HK$10K for surgery to a patient admitted to a ward, this charge could well go up to HK$50K if you have elected to stay in a private room. This is apparently standard practice here in Hong Kong and we were shocked to hear about this.

This practice that the hospitals facilitate, is in violation of the medical council's code of conduct that clearly states, "A doctor should not charge or collect an excessive fee. The Medical Council will consider the following factors as guidelines in determining whether a fee is excessive: the difficulty and special circumstances of the services performed and the time, skill and experience required; the average fee customarily charged in the HKSAR for similar services; and the experience and ability of the doctor in performing the kind of services involved."

Changing the class of the room has got nothing to do with the doctor’s skill, difficulty of the procedure and the average fee charged for similar services. In the commercial world (excuse my leap of imagination), if I asked for a non-smoking seat, the cost of my dinner would be quadruple that of the person sitting in the smoking section with his cigar lit up. The hospitals do not do anything to prevent this and neither does the medical council or the consumer council (who have not answered my queries from over a month ago on this issue) and I fear this is because they do not acknowledge their patients as customers in a business context.

These medical institutions that are now complaining about the lack of customers should look inwards and answer the following questions. Are their real customers the doctors or the patients? Are they doing everything possible within the guidelines set out by the law and best practices in an international context to fully protect and provide fair service to their customers? Is their main competition the government or the price discrimination by the doctors?

It is time that the patients start behaving like customers of a business. They need to start educating themselves, evaluating their options and questioning the necessity of the procedures and medications the doctors prescribe and putting a fair dollar value to these services. After all, how many times have we complained loudly about the “tea charge” that the restaurants add on and how many times have we ignored the excessive antibiotics and MRIs that the doctors prescribed us?

I would like to welcome doctors and patients to share their views and opinions on this issue with me on this issue at Shriram@hkindians.com .

Shriram Chaubal

HKIndians.Com