Hospital chief sees cooperation opportunites within Bay Area

The imbalance of medical resources between the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions — along with the influx of professionals to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area — provide a great opportunity for cross-boundary medical-care cooperation, but greater efforts should be made to further open up the market.

Clifford L. K. Pang, president of Clifford Group and Clifford Hospital, made the remarks to China Daily before this week’s Greater Bay Area Conference. China Daily is co-organizing the Wednesday conference, which has the theme “GBA: The Way Forward”.

Ever since the mainland opened its doors to the Hong Kong and Macao medical care industry in 2010 under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, medical care service providers from the two SARs have been actively exploring opportunities in the Bay Area, he said.

The Bay Area’s large population, strong ability to attract talent, and similarities in cultures and languages among the cities provide a solid foundation for the development of the medical care industry and cross-boundary cooperation in the region, he said.

“On one hand, medical resources in Hong Kong and Macao are scarce. This will definitely direct some of the demand to the mainland. On the other, as one of the most economically dynamic and open regions in the country, the Bay Area will surely attract more and more high-net-worth people to work and live there, boosting medical demand,” Pang said, adding that his organization is poised to play a bigger role in the process.

“We hope to clear the obstacles of healthcare mechanisms in different cities and create a sound medical services circle in the Bay Area, which will enable us to satisfy multilevel medical needs from Hong Kong, Macao and overseas, and promote high-end and internationalized medical services,” he said.

To push forward with cross-boundary collaboration, Pang initiated a program last year that brought together medical management experts from the mainland and Hong Kong to study healthcare policies of the two sides and compile a book on the subject. The book, which focuses on the study of the current situation and future development of medical care in the Bay Area, aims to provide suggestions for better development of the industry in the region.

Yao Zhibin, head of the Guangdong Medical Association, predicted at a conference in Shenzhen last year that healthcare market in the Bay Area is expected to reach 2.5 trillion yuan (US$380 billion) to 3 trillion yuan by 2030.

Given that the healthcare industry has accounted for 15 percent or more of developed countries’ respective GDPs while the figure stands at about 5 percent in China, there is tremendous room for growth in the country’s southern region, Yao said.

As demand for medical services grows with the development of the Bay Area, Pang urged the government to further open up the market to enable more private hospitals to develop there.

“More efforts should be made on attracting social capital to invest in the industry and develop private medical care institutions,” he said. “This will not only help increase the supply of medical resources, but also promote healthy competition between hospitals.”

He added that elderly care will be another highlight in the development of the healthcare industry in the future, and Clifford Group has been pouring a great deal of resources into the sector, having served more than 1,000 elderly people since the opening of its elderly care center in 2007.

“By combining property, education, medical services and elderly care together, we have created a ‘Clifford model’. We hope to expand the model to more cities in the Bay Area and set an example for cross-boundary cooperation,” Pang said.