From self-worth to contribution

  

New Hospital Authority Board Member Professor Lau Chak-sing holds staff well‑being dearly to his heart. He understands that staff morale is an important metric for maintaining a good doctor-patient relationship. Having been a doctor for 33 years, he believes that colleagues who are happy and who feel valued are more motivated in their work. Prof Lau is President of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, the Chair and Daniel C K Yu Professor in Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKU).

After returning to Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1992 and worked as a lecturer in medicine at the Department of Medicine of the HKU, a year after Hospital Authority was formed and which offered their staff a better remuneration package than university clinical staff. “I was invited to join the University Medical Doctors’ Association to campaign for equal pay for university doctors with HA doctors,” he recalls.

Today, the morale of frontline colleagues remains his concern. Prof Lau says Hong Kong’s ageing population is challenging for the public healthcare system, causing heavy workload and crowded working environment for clinical teams. “In the winter months in particular, I feel upset when we see extra beds filling the corridors in wards, long patient waiting time, and clinical staff don’t even have a desk to work from. Fortunately, I saw colleagues in busy working environment still maintain their passion for work and devote themselves to providing the best holistic care to patients.” he adds.

Prof Lau believes it is the management’s responsibility to boost staff morale. Actively introducing new initiatives and measures to boost the morale of frontline employees is pivotal. “How can an unhappy employee engage team members and make patients happy?” he asks. “I hope colleagues, especially new recruits, will feel that they can gain a sense of belonging as an employee, and have self-worth from their work. That way, when they are promoted to higher positions, they will want to contribute to the organisation as a whole and pass that sense of belonging on.”

Prof Lau was one of the first few rheumatologists in the Hong Kong public healthcare system. He began studying the relationship between rheumatism and the immune system with colleagues in 1992, before the specialty of rheumatology was established. In 2001, he founded the Hong Kong Arthritis & Rheumatism Foundation to help patients purchase medicines at lower prices. He was Associate Dean of the Medical School of the HKU between 2013 and 2018 and has become Chief of Service of the Department of Medicine at Queen Mary Hospital in December 2018.