§ 8. Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will request the Hong Kong Government to suspend the operation of Clause Five 2(c) of Ordinance 67 of 1963 introduced on 1st January, 1964, with a view to bringing the inspection of charity clinics under the control of the medical staff of the Government instead of leaving them under the supervision of private practitioners as at present.
§ Mr. FisherNo, Sir. The object of the ordinance is to ensure adequate control of private clinics, including inspection by the Registrar of Clinics. There is to be a review of the working of the ordinance after 18 months.
§ Mr. RankinOn the face of this, would it not seem quite reasonable to hand this inspection to the doctors in Government service who have no private interest in the matter? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in June, 1957, I was promised by the then Under-Secretary that this Section of the Medical Registration Bill would not be brought into operation? Why the change, seven years afterwards, that insists on this being done, in view of the fact that the number of persons in Hong Kong today who need cheap medical facilities are thousands upon thousands greater than they were in 1957?
§ Mr. FisherThe intention of this is to preserve the service given by these clinics but also to ensure that they are properly supervised. I did not get the hon. Gentleman's point about inspection, because the registrar of clinics who will do the inspecting is a Government officer; he is the chief medical officer, which is just what the hon. Gentleman wants.
§ Mr. RankinIs not the hon. Gentleman aware that the medical men who for the most part do this service in Hong Kong, and who are unregistered because they are expatriate doctors from other countries, are just as well qualified as those persons in Hong Kong today who are registered, and all that we are asking is for something similar to what obtained with regard to Polish doctors in this country just after the war?
§ Mr. FisherThe hon. Gentleman is getting muddled. He talks first about inspection and then about supervision. He is now talking about the supervision of the unregistered doctors. The reason that we want them to be supervised is that they are not adequately qualified, or many of them are not, and they do not possess the qualifications laid down by the Hong Kong Medical Association, which are substantially the same as the B.M.A., and we really must maintain adequate standards in Hong Kong.