Health | ‘No green light’ to skip medical personnel accreditation

The Council for Medical Affairs reaffirmed on Wednesday the need for a formal examination of medical personnel skills, stating also that all requests will be processed in the same stringent manner  and according to the rules approved, the Health Bureau informed.
According to the same statement, the council has performed 16 public consultation sessions in order to guarantee that all sectors and citizens could enjoy full and grounded access to the legislation and content of the draft law that regulates the “medical personnel accreditation regime”.
The health authorities felt the need to clarify and reaffirm these requirements, since, in a recent report disclosed by the media, it was indicated that a new inclusion to the project intended to exclude the examination and the internship for 15 healthcare categories. This led to concerns among some citizens who feared that this exemption would have a negative impact on the quality of medical staff.
“this examination aims to evaluate the knowledge and skills of  health care personnel in order to guarantee that they meet the established norms for such a career in Macau,” the statement adds.
In this way, all medical personnel, regardless of where they studied or their clinical experience should obey these requirements in order to obtain their medical accreditation certificate.
The Health Bureau also states that it is worth clarifying that in the project it is mentioned that by council’s deliberation, it is possible to be exempted from the knowledge evaluation test in the cases where the candidates possess a scientific curriculum that can prove that they possess the skills needed to fulfill their profession. However, this mechanism was a reactive measure which sought to address the government’s plan to attract talented locals working abroad to return to Macau and are applied to these individuals only.
Furthermore, those applicants would need to have certain medical specialties that are needed in the territory. Still, the Council will adopt an evenly strict evaluation mechanism to handle these specific cases, as mentioned by the Health Bureau vice-president Dr. Chan Ip Lap. RM

Statistics | Loans grow at a faster rate than deposits

Loans have grown at a faster rate than total deposits in August, according to statistics released by the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM). Broad money supply continued to fall in August, with the amount of currency in circulation dropping by 0.8 percent.
The data released by the AMCM indicates that deposits by residents decreased 1.4 percent from the preceding month to MOP467.0 billion. Deposits by non-residents rose 2.9 percent to MOP256.1 billion. Public sector deposits with the banking sector increased 2.1 percent to MOP125.6 billion. As a result, total deposits with the banking sector in August grew 0.4 percent from a month earlier to MOP848.6 billion. The distribution of MOP, HKD, CNY and USD across the total deposits was 19.7%, 41.0%, 12.3% and 23.2% respectively.
AMCM also indicated that domestic loans to the private sector increased 0.5 percent to MOP386.1 billion.