editorial
Written by: Hong Kong 01
2020-08-24 06:00
Last update date: 2020-08-24 06:00Recently, the local new crown pneumonia epidemic has eased slightly, and the number of confirmed cases has dropped. On the other hand, the Chief Executive Carrie Lam also announced on Friday (August 21) that the voluntary "Universal Community Testing Program" will be officially implemented next month. , Appealing to the public to take the test actively. However, since government officials expressed their intention to implement a nationwide testing program, there have been constant speculations about this move in Hong Kong society, and there have even been various conspiracy theories about "collecting Hong Kong people's genetic information" and "transmitting benefits to mainland institutions". These are just nonsense that lacks real evidence. Unexpectedly, some medical professionals actually use their knowledge and status to support such absurd remarks in an attempt to suppress national testing programs that have proven effective in preventing epidemics in different countries and regions.
In fact, whether the government implements a nationwide testing program is a public health policy issue. Strangely, many people who have recently questioned the national testing plan are not from related majors. For example, members of the New Democratic League Tan Kaibang and Fan Guowei, and Central and Western District Councillor Huang Yongzhi, and others demonstrated against the collection of samples by the Huasheng Diagnostic Center for testing. According to public information It shows that none of them have professional knowledge and experience in medical, infectious diseases, testing or other related fields. Faced with the public talking about the differences in the professional qualification certification system between mainland and Hong Kong and the safety of experimental facilities, others simply laughed at them and ignored them. However, if the same remarks come from the mouth of medical professionals, they will have an impact. Reliability cannot be the same.
A well-developed professional system has always been Hong Kong’s traditional advantage. This is why Article 142 of the Basic Law allows Hong Kong to continue to retain its original professional system under "One Country, Two Systems" and formulate various professional qualification assessment methods. However, this "professional" is expensive In a "professional" word, people who specialize in different industries must stick to their own duties, use their own professional knowledge to help solve the problems of the public, and do not arbitrarily interfere with matters that are not within their professional scope; moreover, mutual respect between various professions can truly Give full play to the advantages of Hong Kong's professional system. When the new crown pneumonia epidemic is raging for a long time, society will inevitably need to increase its dependence on the local medical field. On the contrary, individual related professionals have become motivated, and even criticized public policies and other unrelated medical issues.
Fan Guowei and others from the New Democratic League went outside the Hospital Authority to protest the arrival of central inspectors to Hong Kong. (Photo/Photo by Ou Jiale)
Surgery has specializes in do not go over and do it for you
Patients infected with the virus have to stay in the hospital for treatment, and the specific clinical treatment methods or types of drugs to be taken must of course be handled by medical professionals. However, when it comes to the allocation of public health resources and the implementation of community epidemic prevention measures, these are It is a question for public health policy scholars and epidemiological researchers. After all, a doctor may know how to use medicine to alleviate the patient’s pain and relieve the patient’s condition. But if you ask him how these patients contracted the disease, maybe the latter may know his condition better; As for what arrangements the whole society can do to reduce the risk of virus transmission, it goes beyond the scope of knowledge that most medical professionals should have. Asking this question to a doctor may not get much more reliable answers than asking ordinary people.
Moreover, even if they belong to the same medical profession, they will be further subdivided into different medical specialties, and doctors belonging to different specialties have different levels of knowledge about different diseases and disciplines. Family doctors of internal and external general practitioners judge that the patient’s condition is serious, so he will refer him to other specialists for follow-up, and famous doctors with a degree in urology may be helpless even in the face of some rare medical illnesses... We are not criticizing These doctors are not professional enough, but point out that they should be familiar with the limitations of their own abilities and not intervene in the areas where others should be responsible. For the same reason, not every medical professional is authoritative in the prevention and treatment of new coronary pneumonia. We can rest assured that we can listen to the opinions of experts who have studied infectious diseases for many years, but we cannot accept people with ulterior motives under the name of medical profession.
The most noteworthy among them is the fact that individuals under the guise of their medical professional status are arbitrarily criticizing and discrediting the government’s anti-epidemic measures. For example, the government recently plans to recruit medical-related students to assist in handling the sampling work of the National Testing Program. The Civic Party Legislative Council is a doctor. Congressman Guo Jiaqi immediately made alarmist talks, claiming that the lack of training of sampling personnel may injure the tester, the high crowd at the testing site may become the source of the spread of drugs, etc. However, similar medical accidents and the risk of virus transmission clearly exist in general clinics, like Guo Jiaqi Such a one-sided emphasis on situations that may occur during the implementation of the National Testing Program, without proposing any constructive alternatives. Such remarks can only cause public panic, and refusal to undergo testing will have no effect on the prevention and fight against the epidemic. help.
However, there is one thing that the local medical profession has performed quite "professional" a few days ago, and that is calling for an increase in their income from helping the government fight the epidemic. In fact, long before the government announced that it would introduce mainland experts to assist in the implementation of universal testing, medical professional organizations deliberately downplayed the feasibility of related arrangements, and separately advocated the use of "medical voucher" projects to subsidize the public to purchase viruses in the local private medical market. The objective effect of testing or other services can only be to increase the profits of private doctors. Recently, some people said that because the hourly salary of private doctors in public hospitals has reached 1,000 yuan, they threatened to double the remuneration of private doctors to participate in the national test to 2,000 yuan. It can be seen that at least on the issue of seeking benefits for their peers, the medical sector has come to this time. Today it has not changed its "professional" nature.
(Profile picture/Photo by Zhang Haowei)
Professional non-private partners should give back to society
"Hong Kong 01" has always sneered at this "professional" attitude only when it involves vital interests. Just as last year, the Hong Kong community was enthusiastic about relaxing the restrictions on the internship of overseas specialists, hoping to increase the number of doctors and reduce the cost of medical treatment for the public. However, in the discussion process, the biggest obstacle came from medical professional organizations representing the interests of local medical practitioners. They argued that they would retain The threshold for overseas doctors' internship is to safeguard the quality of Hong Kong's medical services and the rights and interests of patients. At that time, we did not hesitate to expose the diorama of this group of people under the false "professional" name and the real protection. Unexpectedly, more than a year later, medical professional protectionism reappeared before our eyes. This time, the relevant people even put aside the social welfare and patient rights that were still talking about last year, and directly asked for rewards. It is inevitable that people feel greedy and ugly.
The etymology of professional English "profession" is the Latin "profiteor", which looks similar to "profit" (profit), but has nothing to do with it. On the contrary, its original meaning is "recognition", "publication" and "obligation" provide". Doctors or other medical practitioners can base themselves in Hong Kong society as a profession, and be respected and accepted by the general public for their high consultation fees in return. In addition to the fact that everyone's life must experience birth, old age, sickness, and death, it is more important We recognize that they really uphold and practice the lofty goal of "rescuing the emergency and helping the emergency." If "professional" members still put their own interests first and are unwilling to give back to the society at a critical moment, they may not openly call themselves "professionals" but admit that they are "profiteers" selling services. .
The International Code of Medical Ethics of the World Medical Association stipulates that “doctors shall not be influenced by their personal interests or unfair discrimination”, “doctors must be committed to the best use of medical resources for the benefit of patients and society”, as the general medical students’ graduation oath The Geneva Declaration also stated that "As a medical worker...I take the health and well-being of patients as my primary concern", "I will not tolerate age, illness or disability, belief, ethnicity, gender, nationality, politics The consideration of party affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social status, or any other factor lies between my duties and the patient," I believe every member of the medical profession is familiar with this. We hope that the local medical care industry can uphold these principles and concentrate on helping the society prevent and fight the epidemic, instead of wasting professional knowledge or status in the wrong direction.
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