It was heart-sinking to read
about the comments and accusations from the Chairman of the Medical Council on the
elected members. The following was found
in the Apple Daily on April 1, 2012.
【本報訊】醫委會改革擾攘多年，有委員曾建議改由全港醫生普選全部醫委會委員。醫委會主席劉允怡表明反對，認為由業界普選的醫生在某情況下，只會維護業界利益，醫管局引入海外醫生事件最為明顯。
醫委會現有 28名委員， 7人由醫生直選， 7人由醫學會選出，
14人由政府委任，當中包括 4名非業界人士。劉允怡表示，由業界普選所有委員最能維護大眾利益，只是「偷換概念」的說法，令人誤以為普選一定好。以醫院管理局引入海外醫生為例，雖然市民一般贊成，但直選醫生全數反對，未有保障公眾利益。
My first reaction was that such
comments were outrageous and absurd. The
reasons were multi-folded, and would be explained in a convergence version. First, while it was acceptable for the
Chairman to give his personal opinions on how the Medical Council should be
composed of, it was unacceptable for him to attack a designated group of
members while they were fulfilling their duties as members of the Council by
deliberating and deciding on matters during policy meetings. The Chairman was supposed to be impartial, and
to listen to members’ opinions so as to come to a decision reflecting the
majority view of the Council. In this
case, the Chairman openly accused elected members of not protecting the public.
It was just like a judge, after the jury
returned the verdict of guilty of murder for a defendant, openly called the odd
member of the jury who voted for not guilty the bad apple of the jury.
Second, let’s forget about
whether the Chairman’s statements were factual for the mean time. The above judge-jury analogy did illustrate an
important point. In the decisions on
applications for limited registration submitted by the Hospital Authority, the
Council was bounded by provisions in the Medical Registration Ordinance (MRO). We were not talking about legislation or
ethical dilemma. We were judging
according to the details prescribed in the MRO, among which were whether the
applications were necessary and appropriate in those given time periods and
situations. Each case was decided separately.
There was no room for consideration of
public opinions, not to say that there was no means of getting public opinions
on a particular case as the details were never revealed to the public. In the judge-jury analogy, we did not expect
the judge to scold the odd member of the jury and preached to him that public
opinions favour finding the defendant guilty.
In fact this was exactly what I
discussed and condemned in my previous Editorial. Limited registration application was not
public consultation for a new policy. It
was wrong, if not illegal, for the application side to exert pressure on
members of the Council who were required by law to adjudicate on the
applications according to the MRO. It
was not desirable for members to be influenced unduly, either consciously or
subconsciously, by such pressure. I have
derived a three-stage test for such purpose: (1) Are there actions that can
exert undue influences on members as regarded by an ordinary person? (2) Do members realize that there exist such
undue influences? (3) Are members
influenced by such undue influences? I
had gone through the three stages in the decision making process of the
previous applications and I reassured myself that I was not influenced by undue
influences that did exist. I am afraid I
have to gone through that once again as there are now the Chairman’s
accusations.
Third, the accusations were not
based on facts. According to the
discussions above, it was obviously that even if the accusations were based on
facts, they were not appropriate. However,
the fact that such accusations were groundless made the whole thing even more
heart-sinking. The decisions for the
applications for limited registration were made case by case. Council Members voted by secret ballot for
each application. There was by no means
for the Chairman, or in fact anyone, to know who had voted for or against a
motion of approving each application. When
looking back at the cases, the voting results were dissimilar for different
cases. For example, for a senior and
experienced doctor specialized in a field where such doctors were obviously
lacking, most of the members voted for the motion to approve the application. As the result reflected, there must have been
many elected members who had voted for it. It was only in some controversial cases, such
as placing an inexperience doctor to a post where no local doctor was willing
to take up because of unfavourable working environment, that many members voted
against the motion for application. Even
in such cases, the number of members voting against were not equal to the
number of elected members taking part in the decision making.
As a member of the Medical
Council elected by the profession, it hurts to hear that I have failed to
protect the public. I believe members
who have voted for me would not expected me, or in fact any elected member, to
behave in the described manner of looking after the privileges of the
profession and scarifying the well being of the general public. I can reassure you with certainty that the
accusations are groundless.
(Source: HKMA News April 2012)
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