Hong Kong has one of the world’s top-ranked medical services, providing the city’s 7.4 million people with care that has a good reputation for availability, affordability and quality.
But the universal, low-cost public health care system has a downside – including long waiting times and relatively less comfort and privacy than private-sector patients get.
The public system also faces a shortage of practitioners, a serious issue the city will increasingly have to grapple with as its population continues to grow and age.
Pressure on the public system has already started pushing patients – those who can afford it – to the private-sector medical care in Hong Kong is second-most expensive in the world, after the United States.
(Photo: SCMP / Sam Tsang)
