XN000022-1995-11-08 — Page 40

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Mr President,

I move that the Medical Registration (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 1995 be read the second time.

On 7 June earlier this year, I introduced the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill into this Council. However, in view of the large amount of legislative business to be conducted at the end of the 1994-95 legislative session, the Bills Committee decided that it would restrict its scrutiny of the Bill to those provisions relating to the introduction of a universal licensing examination and to practitioners-in-charge of exempted clinics. The remaining provisions have now been included in this Bill. This Bill proposes four major areas of changes necessary because of changes in circumstances over time.

The first proposed change concerns the composition of the Medical Council, which at present comprises 14 members appointed by the Governor. Since 1978 the number of registered medical practitioners has grown from some 3,000 to over 8,000, the number of complaints has increased from 27 to 170 and the number of formal disciplinary hearings has increased from 4 to 29. The Council needs to be expanded to broaden its representation and to meet this increasing workload. The Bill proposes a new Council of 24 members, with expanded representation from, inter alias, the University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Medical Association and the lay sectors. These 24 members shall include 12 elected members - six to be elected from all registered medical practitioners on the General Register and the rest to be elected by all members of the Hong Kong Medical Association. The introduction of directly elected members in the Medical Council is in line with Government's policy of encouraging greater involvement of the profession in its own affairs.

The introduction of a Specialist Register is our second proposed change. We have at present a register of medical practitioners. However, the community has no means of knowing which of those practitioners may be qualified to practise in a certain medical specialty. A Specialist Register is proposed to be established to allow for the formal registration and control of medical specialists. A General Register will take the place of the existing register.

The existing Ordinance provides for the establishment of a Licentiate Committee and a Preliminary Investigation Committee. We propose to enshrine in law various other important aspects of the Council's work through the establishment of three other statutory committees. They are the Health Committee, the Education and Accreditation Committee and the Ethics Committee.

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