Nurse staffing debate: gov says 99% of reg. nurse applicants hired

The city's health authorities reiterate 99% of registered nurse applicants last year were offered jobs, stressing non-locally trained nurses make up only a small fraction of the workforce.

The latest debate -- sparking renewed scrutiny over the demand for local nurses -- began during a phone-in radio programme which invited Chief Executive John Lee as guest.

In the show, a retired healthcare worker Mr Kwok lamented how nursing graduates were having difficulty securing a job, noting how imported mainland nurses are "taking away jobs."

Executive Council member Tommy Cheung questioned whether the call was actually made by someone from the nursing union.

Tuesday morning, Mr Kwok called the radio programme again.

He says people in Hong Kong will always remember when the city received support from mainland healthcare workers during the pandemic, stressing what he wishes

authorities and institutions to do better is manpower planning so the city won't end up training too many nurses.

According to the government's latest statement on Hong Kong's nursing manpower situation, it says the Hospital Authority's nurse attrition rate has fallen to 5.4%, with recruitment ongoing for around 3,200 vacancies.

Last year, around 4,000 potential nursing graduates entered the workforce with some 87% becoming enrolled or registered nurses.

99% of the 2,500 applicants for registered nurse posts at HA last year were hired.

This year, the Hospital Authority has received around 3,000 applications, and has so far issued 2,200 offers in the first round.

But the union says it has received complaints from some recent graduates who were unsuccessful in their applications for HA's registered nurse positions.

Cecilia So, President of Hong Kong Nurses General Union says some vacancies came from retired nurses so the senior positions could be a mismatch for newly graduated nurses.

The government says currently only around 50 registered HA nurses were trained outside Hong Kong, accounting for less than 0.2% of the Authority's total nursing workforce,

meaning 99.8% are locally trained.