November 5, 2024
HONG KONG – The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has fast become to Hong Kong residents what Johor Bahru is to many Singaporeans: a haven for wallet-friendly shopping, dining and recreation.
But it is not just malls and eateries that Hong Kongers are frequenting.
A growing number are “heading north” to the tech hub for healthcare services ranging from dental and health screening, to specialist treatments and even surgical procedures.
One of them is data analyst Anthea Chor, 44, who since mid-2023 has had routine check-ups at both public and private healthcare facilities in Shenzhen, and takes her retired parents there for medical treatment as well.
Healthcare costs in Shenzhen, she says, are as much as “10 times cheaper” than in Hong Kong.
“Nowadays, a lot of my friends’ parents see doctors in Shenzhen, and don’t do so in Hong Kong any more,” she told The Straits Times.
The number of Hong Kongers “heading north” for medical treatment has been on the rise in 2024, especially after borders reopened in early 2023 following the Covid-19 pandemic, said Dr Gong Peng, executive dean at Shenzhen University General Hospital.
The public hospital received more than 3,000 patient visits from residents of Hong Kong and Macau in the first three quarters of 2024 – 1½ to two times more than during the same period in 2022 or 2023, he told ST.
Separately, the Shenzhen New Frontier United Family Hospital, a Hong Kong-funded private entity, has also seen its patient pool from the city grow since mid-2023, Caixin reported in June.
Driving this trend are the long waits in Hong Kong for affordable public healthcare for non-urgent conditions and the high costs of private alternatives for those not covered by insurance.
Ms Chor’s 61-year-old mother, who suffers from osteoarthritis, or degenerative joint disease, of the knee, would have had to join a three-year queue for treatment at a Hong Kong public hospital as her condition was not assessed to be urgent.
And because she is uninsured, pursuing private treatment in the city would be extremely expensive.
In Shenzhen, she did not have to wait for an appointment. She paid the equivalent of HK$100 (S$17) in consultation fees and HK$240 for a CT (computed tomography) scan – a fraction of the HK$1,200 and HK$2,000, respectively, that private practitioners in Hong Kong would have charged, said Ms Chor.
At the recommendation of a friend, civil servant Keith Leung, 51, has been visiting a private dental clinic in Shenzhen to get his teeth cleaned.
“In Hong Kong, the cleaning takes just 10 minutes, but in Shenzhen, it took half an hour,” he said, describing how service was “more attentive” up north. His last dental bill totalled HK$120 – a tenth of the price in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s residents can enjoy heavily subsidised public healthcare at home, but a shortage of doctors, compounded by an ageing population, has meant that patients not assessed to have urgent conditions must wait for months, or even years, to consult a specialist.
From July 2023 to June 2024, the median waiting time for new, non-urgent surgical patients looking to book appointments at a public specialist outpatient clinic was between 17 and 62 weeks, depending on location.
A tenth of these patients had to wait for at least 72 to 111 weeks, according to data from Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority, which manages the city’s public hospitals.
Hong Kongers also do not enjoy free dental care at home, except for emergency pain relief and extractions at 11 government clinics.
Hong Kong residents who hold valid mainland travel permits are eligible to seek medical care at public hospitals in Shenzhen, and can make appointments to do so online.
Travelling between the cities can take as little as 14 minutes via high-speed rail. Other forms of public transport, such as bus and metro, are available as well.
Other conveniences include a pilot scheme by the Hong Kong government that allows residents with scheduled follow-up appointments at some of the Hospital Authority’s outpatient clinics to receive subsidised consultations across the border at The University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital.
The public hospital, built by the Shenzhen government with a management model from The University of Hong Kong, is popular with Hong Kongers, receiving more than 40,000 outpatient visits from the city’s residents in the first quarter of 2024, the local media reported.
In addition, Hong Kongers aged 65 and above can use government-issued healthcare vouchers to pay for outpatient healthcare services there, and at eight other medical institutions in Guangdong province – part of the special administrative region’s move to facilitate its residents’ access to healthcare in the broader Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA).
They can also apply to have their electronic medical records accessed at some of these institutions.
But local media reports have noted that some Hong Kong patients face issues accessing their digital records when seeking treatment on the mainland, and have also expressed concerns over how to handle cross-border medical disputes should complications arise.
In Shenzhen, patients from Hong Kong are increasing not just in number, but also in the types of treatment they seek.
In the past, they mostly visited for ailments with a short consultation period, including for ear, nose and throat issues, or health scans, said Dr Gong.
But now, a growing number are visiting departments ranging from oral medicine to dermatology, and also undergoing more complicated procedures such as surgical procedures, he noted.
They include a breast cancer patient who underwent an operation at Dr Gong’s hospital in June instead of doing so at home – where she would have had to wait for at least six months for treatment at a public hospital, he said.
The trend of more Hong Kongers seeking healthcare on the mainland is a function of the city’s “deeper integration with the Greater Bay Area” amid high land and labour costs, said Professor Sonny Lo, a Hong Kong-based political scientist and commenter.
“Hong Kong’s internal competition vis-a-vis the mainland has been decreasing,” Prof Lo said.
“The entire Hong Kong society will have to adapt to that, and institutions here will have to think of how to increase the city’s competitiveness, whether by lowering prices or otherwise.”
The trend is likely to continue for healthcare services where Shenzhen provides lower costs and shorter queues, and could also expand to aged care services, said Mr Gary Ng, a senior economist at investment bank Natixis in Hong Kong.
With that being said, Hong Kong still retains an edge in premium healthcare services, where there is large private-sector involvement, he added.
In his annual policy address on Oct 16, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said the city would scale up medical collaboration in the GBA.
The existing pilot scheme allowing the city’s senior citizens to use government-issued healthcare vouchers at designated facilities across the border would be extended to all nine GBA cities, from five currently. The sharing of electronic medical records across the border would also be expanded, he added.
In addition, elderly Hong Kongers on welfare would get subsidies to retire at designated residential care homes in Guangdong, Mr Lee said, under a new pilot scheme to be launched in 2025.
Mainland China’s healthcare system, which has been undergoing reforms, is not without its problems.
In 2023, the authorities mounted a sweeping crackdown on corruption in the sector – doctors have been accused of overprescribing medication or treatments for profit, and public resources are also limited.
But even amid this influx of Hong Kongers, Shenzhen and other GBA cities have sufficient medical resources to meet local needs, said Dr Gong.
The healthcare requirements of visiting Hong Kongers do not overlap entirely with those of Shenzhen’s residents, as the city has a young demographic with an average age of 32.5, he added.
Back in Hong Kong, Ms Chor said that beyond healthcare, her parents enjoy the lower cost of living across the border, for which savings on daily expenses such as food can be up to 50 per cent.
“That’s why they are now almost trying to move to Shenzhen,” she said.