Hong Kong lawmakers on Wednesday approved “historic” amendments to the registration ordinance for dentists, including the introduction of a controversial internship for graduates.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said the changes were a “historic moment” for the profession and the first major alterations to the legislation governing dentists in decades.
“The amendment bill is Hong Kong’s first large-scale and thorough amendment on the city’s dentist registration ordinance in more than 60 years,” Lo said.
He was speaking after the Dentists Registration (Amendment) Bill, which has been scrutinised by the legislature since April, was passed by lawmakers after the second and third readings were done on the same day.
The bill introduced two other major changes to the ordinance in addition to the one-year internship arrangement for Hong Kong dental graduates or an assessment for dentists trained elsewhere.
There will also be new pathways to limited registration and special registration, similar to the current system for doctors, for dentists trained elsewhere in a bid to increase the number of professionals amid a shortage.
They would be able to work in specified health institutions in the public sector without having to pass the city’s licensing exam.
Dental hygienists and dental therapists will also be renamed as dental care professionals and a statutory registration system for them set up.
Lo said the shortage of dentists in the public sector was a serious problem and that the Department of Health had 110 vacancies out of 370 positions.
He added the health department would start to recruit dentists from outside Hong Kong immediately.
The Dental Council said it was “delighted” that the amendments had passed and the that decision was a “significant milestone” for the city’s dental profession.
It added that the amendments would come into force on the days stipulated by the health minister and published in the government gazette.
The council said it would reveal further details, including how to apply for the various types of registration, at a later date.
The internship arrangement was the most controversial of the proposed changes, and sparked debates among dental students, the watchdog Dental Council, and University of Hong Kong (HKU), home of the city’s only dental school.
Lawmakers voiced their support for the internships on the last day of the debate.
“Students could only have contact with screened patients when they were at school,” Lam So-wai said.
“But during an internship, they can have contact with a wider range of clinical cases.”
She added dental graduates may also need to handle urgent cases, as well as people with mental disabilities and the elderly.
But some in the legislature backed dental students who said earlier they had been deprived of their right to informed consent because they were not told about an internship programme before they signed up for the degree course.
“Before students made the decision [to undertake the degree], should they have been clearly informed there would be one more year of dental internship?” Chan Hoi-yan asked.
She criticised the government, the Dental Council and the HKU and insisted they could have handled the matter better.
Chan added the authorities should also have revealed “structural problems” in the university’s bachelor of dentistry programme earlier.
“If the issue could be frankly explained to affected students earlier, the so-called controversy might not have existed,” she said.
Chan added difficulties in the profession would not be entirely dealt with through the passage of the amendments.
“The problem is not yet solved,” she said. “The Dental Council and the government should look into how HKU’s faculty of dentistry solves the difficulties faced by year one to year five students.”
