(From left) Savina Sze Yee-man, nurse consultant (gerontology) at the New Territories East Cluster; Liu Jiali, nurse from Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou; Danny Tong Wah-kun, chief manager (nursing) and chief nurse executive at the Hospital Authority; Chen Cuixia, nurse from the Second People's Hospital of Foshan; and Law Tze-ching, associate nurse consultant (gerontology) at TWGHs Fung Yiu King Hospital, pose for a photograph at a sharing session held by the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong on Feb 2, 2024. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Total 100 nurses from the Chinese mainland will arrive in Hong Kong by the end of February, in the second batch of an exchange program, and will serve in various medical departments of the city’s public hospitals, including critical care, ophthalmology, endoscopy, and surgical wards. 

Selected from among 650 applicants from 14 cities in Guangdong province, the nurses have an average of nine years of clinical experience. 

Of them, 14 already arrived in the city on Jan 16. They are working at the ophthalmology, endoscopy and cardiac care units. The other nurses, who will arrive by the end of February, will be stationed in elderly care, perioperative and intensive care units. 

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Addressing the media on Friday, Danny Tong Wah-kun, chief manager (nursing) and chief nurse executive at the Hospital Authority, said he was satisfied with the effectiveness of the first phase of the exchange program, and hopes the program will be extended to more departments and will bring in more qualified people in the future.

The 70 mainland nurses who came in the first phase of the program and are mostly serving in elderly care wards, were not sufficient to meet the manpower needs of the city’s hospitals, said Danny Tong from Hospital Authority

The first phase of the Greater Bay Area Specialty Nursing Knowledge-exchange Programme started on April 17, 2023 and lasts for 10 and a half months, with the participation of about 70 nurses from the mainland. Eight seminars were held for this program, each attracting over 300 nurses to share their experiences.

Tong said the 70 nurses on the first phase of the program, who are mostly serving in elderly care wards, were not sufficient to meet the manpower needs of the city’s hospitals.

While the program has not completely solved the issue of healthcare staffing shortages in Hong Kong, the inclusion of mainland nurses has alleviated some of the pressure caused by the personnel shortages in the hospitals they have been assigned to, Tong said.

There are many commonalities between the two regions in terms of professional dedication, doctor-patient relationships and service models, and the development of the nursing profession in both regions has reached international standards, the doctor said.  

Two of the first participants on the program, along with two of their peers from Hong Kong, also shared their feelings about working side by side in the city with their counterparts at the media session on Friday.

Liu Jiali, a nurse from Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou, said she had benefited from the warm support shown to her by her Hong Kong colleagues, and from the lectures delivered by various world-renowned experts in the city, which had helped her improve her professional knowledge, she said. 

She praised the interconnectivity among the different hospitals in Hong Kong, which she said greatly improves their efficiency and reduces the inconvenience of patient referrals between different hospitals. 

Savina Sze Yee-man, a nurse consultant (gerontology) at the New Territories East Cluster, said she was impressed by the mainland nurses’ eagerness to learn and by their keen observation skills. 

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They are always quick to pick up on patients’ needs, she said, adding that one of nurses had promptly understood the needs of an aphasic elderly patient who had wanted to use the restroom. 

The exchange has also provided an opportunity for Sze to gain some insights into the mainland’s medical system. For instance, she learned that the digitization of hospitals in the mainland has made daily work very convenient, and hospitals can utilize big data to observe changes in patient flows during different time periods, enabling better coordination of staff and resources.

Differences between the two healthcare systems didn’t prevent Law Tze-ching, associate nurse consultant (gerontology) at TWGHs Fung Yiu King Hospital, from participating in the program along with her mainland peers. 

In her opinion, nurses from both regions have the same philosophy when it comes to elderly care, which is to provide excellent care for the elderly while also supporting their caregivers, thus enabling elderly to enjoy a peaceful life in the community.

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She said that many exchange nurses from the mainland were already contemplating how they can apply the knowledge they have acquired in Hong Kong to their work on the mainland.

Tong said he was delighted to see the nurses learn from each other's strengths, despite the differences between the two regions’ healthcare systems.