By: Hamish CHANEdited by: Clarice Wu

The government said the new health code app compatible with Guangdong and Macau to facilitate travel to the mainland will be available at 9am on Dec 10, though it has not yet announced when quarantine-free travel will begin. “The government is still negotiating with the mainland authorities but said it had come to the final stage after the visit of mainland experts to Hong Kong,” Alfred Sit Wing-hang, the Secretary for Innovation and Technology, said in a press conference today. The government said it will also provide an update for the LeaveHomeSafe app, which allows users to transfer visiting records to the mainland-compatible Hong Kong Health Code app. The app will be launched as a “pilot run” before quarantine-free travel starts with no need to rush, said Sit. Users will need to provide personal information, such as their address and HKID card number, and upload the visiting record from LeaveHomeSafe. The authorities said 31 days of record will be uploaded, but only the past 21 days of record will be used to generate the code required for border crossings. Users whose records do not show visits to high-risk places and are not close contacts or household contacts of close contacts of confirmed cases in the past 21 days will get a green code. For those who have no plan to travel to the mainland, Sit said they do not need to update their LeaveHomeSafe app. “The government has no plan, and did not see the need for real-name registration for the LeaveHomeSafe App,” Sit added. Li Yan-yi, 27, said she will not use the Hong Kong Health Code app. “I have no plan to go to the mainland, and have tons of privacy concerns for the app,” said Li. “When the government launched the app, they said it is all …

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor 's latest policy address barely covered medical brain drain, as more doctors and nurses leave public hospitals because of poor workplace conditions and low salaries or emigrate. “I don’t have much expectation on the policy address,” said Chung Pak-chi, 20, a third-year medical student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, adding most of her peers did not want to practice locally due to intense workload and low salary. Since July 2020, the turnover rate for full-time doctors in public hospitals has reached 4.9%, said Hospital Authority Chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling in August, and 6.7% for nurses, a 0.9% increase from 2019. Emigration contributed to staff loss, Fan said, and the situation is “concerning.” Private hospitals also poach talents from the public sector, worsening the situation there, he added. Gloria Law, 25, a nurse with three-years experience in a public hospital, said the workload she endured was “intense and heavy,” adding that each nurse had to take care of 12 patients at one time. A pay freeze announced by the Civil Service Bureau in June further widened the salary gap between nurses in the private and public sectors, Law said. Her salary after three years in a public hospital is less than what a nurse in the private sector makes in the first year. “The salary is not appealing enough as well,” she said. Despite these challenges, Lam highlighted government healthcare policies in her address, describing them as “multi‑pronged,” but stopped short of laying out new concrete measures. In September, the Hospital Authority extended retirement from 60 to 65 and created promotions for nurses to pursue specialisation. In August, the government proposed amendments to the Medical Registration Bill to allow non-locally trained doctors - regardless of their Hong Kong permanent residence status …

Hongkongers are overworked and stressed out, research shows. More than 60% of workers have symptoms of “burnout,” including easily getting tired and losing interest in everything, according to research by the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong and Tung Wah College. A quarter of interviewees said they feel “extremely depressed or anxious.” More than a third work overtime with an average 48.4 hours per week despite an average contract of 41 hours per week, the research found.  “Hong Kong is starting late for promoting workplace mental health,” Lawrence Lam, Vice President of Tung Wah College, said in a press conference today.  Most surveyed said they did not have flexible working hours. “We encourage enterprises to have ‘Mental Health Workplace Policies’, including family friendly policies and flexible working hours,” Stephen Wong, the Assistant Director General of the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong, said at the press conference. Mr Wong said employees should learn more about mental health, pay attention to the mental health condition of people around them and develop a caring culture in the workplace.  It is normal to have high working pressure in Hong Kong and having workshops and online lessons is a waste of time, Steve Lam, 47, a clerk in a telecom firm, said. “The best way to release our pressure is to give us more holidays,” said Mr Lam. “It is good to have positive communications, but managers need to communicate and understand us first.”  “I think having lessons and workshops will work, it will help reduce our working pressure,” said Brook Chan, who is in his 30s and works in customer service.  The researchers interviewed 213 full-time employees from two different enterprises and plan to talk to 400 more of different backgrounds and ranks, said Prof Lam. The full report will be released at …