Health | Bureau pledges all current medical staff will be accredited

Lei Chin Ion

All of Macau’s current medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, will have their medical licenses smoothly transferred to the region’s newly proposed regime for the accreditation and licensing of medical personnel.

Last week, the analysis of a bill that proposes to create a regime for medical personnel accreditation was concluded by the Executive Council. The bill was sent to the Legislative Assembly (AL) to be voted on.

The bill mainly proposes that medical personnel be accredited and licensed under the condition that these professionals have a medical internship, medical practice experience, and have passed the city’s future medical personnel examination.

“Even if the bill is passed [at the AL], all medical personnel, including doctors and nurses, who are currently practicing medical services in Macau, will not be affected at all” by the new regime, declared Lei Chin Ion, Director of the Health Bureau (SSM). “One hundred percent of them can pass the accreditation to immediately become medical professionals under the new regime.”

This policy will be applied to medical professionals who have already retired as well.

“The retired ones will get their professional accreditation, although this does not mean they eventually become licensed,” Lei said.

However, according to Lei, the accreditation is different from a medical services operation license, in that the former does not entitle relevant people to perform medical operations.

The SSM director explained that the city currently has two medical professional license mechanisms that are both “not that good.”

“One of the [current] license systems does not require [medical services performers] to pass exams [before they practice], graduates do not need an internship and can [still] obtain a doctor’s license,” Lei pointed out, adding that “many places need doctors to take exams and go through an internship before getting a license.”

This proposal will unite both the public and private medical sectors, with the two sectors falling under the same regulations.

Once the law comes into effect, accredited doctors can only operate within their own profession, “like dentists can only operate in dentistry.”

“This [accreditation system] protects the residents,” Lei remarked.

Along with this law, one administrative regulation also proposes the establishment of an Academy of Medicine.

The academy will be responsible mainly for the supervision of medical specialists’ training, which will take place at the city’s hospitals, including Conde S. Januário, Kiang Wu, the University Hospital of the Macau University of Science and Technology, and at the city’s health centers under SSM’s administration.

The schedule for the establishment of the academy remains unknown.

People with a Master’s or a PhD degree can have a reduced period of training in the academy. Julie Zhu