Newly-qualified dentists could be made to work in the public sector for up to three years as part of a government plan to tackle manpower shortages. The head of the Hong Kong Dental Association said the profession was being consulted on the proposal, which is similar to one put forward earlier to recruit doctors to the public healthcare system. Damon Pang reports:

A unionist lawmaker has welcomed the government's plan to allow non-locally trained nurses to work here without taking a licensing exam. Bill Tang of the Federation of Trade Unions says the move is needed to ease a manpower crunch in the public medical sector that he says is having serious consequences for patients. But he told Ada Au that the priority should still be to train local staff, and then make it easier for people living here who have nursing qualifications from overseas to take up jobs:

The dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, Wallace Lau, says more should be done to attract non-local doctors to the SAR. But he said while it could be a solution to a manpower crunch in the public healthcare sector, it would take time to yield long-term results. The newcomer to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference also stressed the need to develop a better primary healthcare system to cope with the ageing population. He spoke to Kelly Yu on the sidelines of Beijing’s annual “two sessions” meetings:

The president of the Physiotherapy Association says he hopes a plan to allow people to directly consult physiotherapists without a doctor's referral will be in place by early next year. The proposal was announced in Carrie Lam's Policy Address in 2021. The association's Marco Pang said a detailed proposal was still being drafted among the various stakeholders. He dismissed concerns that physios might miss serious illnesses if patients bypassed doctors. He also told Ben Tse that the plan would support government efforts to boost primary healthcare and preventative medicine:

Queen Elizabeth Hospital says maintenance work is taking place at one of its staff changing rooms after possible risks with the ceiling were discovered. This follows a string of recent mishaps at public hospitals, involving falling lumps of masonry and a surgical lighting unit. Maggie Ho reports:

A global consulting firm says there is strong demand from Greater Bay Area residents to visit Hong Kong now that Covid restrictions have been lifted. But as Hailey Yip reports, it says the SAR needs to up its game to take advantage:

Arthur Shek, managing partner at McKinsey Hong Kong, says its survey of people in the Greater Bay area showed a strong demand to travel to the SAR in the coming 12 months. But he told Ben Tse that Hong Kong was slipping in areas of service quality, such as providing mainland consumers with a seamless digital shopping experience:

The MTR Corporation has posted a profit of $9.8 billion for last year, a nearly three-percent annual increase even though it logged a sharp fall in recurrent earnings. The company also said billions would be spent on upgrades and maintenance, as Frank Yung reports:

Beijing has criticised the Netherlands for joining Washington in blocking Chinese access to technology needed to manufacture advanced processor chips. The Dutch firm, ASML, is a major supplier for semiconductor manufacturers. The Foreign Ministry voiced the criticism after a Dutch minister told lawmakers that exports of equipment that uses ultraviolet light to etch circuits on chips would be restricted on security grounds. Aaron Tam reports:

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has outlined stiffer penalties for people smugglers, after holding a cabinet meeting near the site where more than 70 migrants died in a shipwreck last month. At a press conference in the Calabrian town of Cutro, she stressed her determination to fight smuggling gangs. RTHK's UK correspondent, Peter Anderson, told Vicky Wong that the prime minister faces tough legislative and political battles to bring her plan to fruition: