More than 500 doctors and 2,600 nurses in the public system had quit between April 2021 and the same month this year as part of a rising turnover rate.

Lee’s policy suggestion had courted controversy, with former finance chief John Tsang Chun-wah warning that the proposal – which he described as meaningless and unnecessary – could become another “push factor that prompts more doctors and nurses to leave public hospitals”.

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Asked on Tuesday if he was worried the plan could be counterproductive, Lee said: “I believe that Hong Kong people love this city and are willing to make sacrifices for Hong Kong … I strongly believe that apart from loving their jobs, medical professionals also take up their employment as they want to serve society.”

He said those working as doctors and nurses in public healthcare were fulfilling a social responsibility, as the government had “devoted social resources to train them and to serve the city’s overall interest”.

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Lee said he would leave it to the Health Bureau to discuss actual details with the relevant stakeholders, adding he believed medical professionals would take the factors he mentioned into consideration.

Earlier, Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau, when asked about manpower shortages at public hospitals that had resulted in lengthy waiting time for patients, called on workers in the sector to “rediscover the first intentions of joining the medical field”.

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In a Legislative Council meeting on October 27, Lo said it was rare nowadays for doctors to work in a public hospital until they were promoted to consultants or retired.

According to government estimates in 2020, Hong Kong would be short of 1,600 doctors and 2,700 nurses by 2030.

Medical and health services sector lawmaker Dr David Lam Tzit-yuen said 90 per cent of doctors chose to stay in the public sector after graduation and do a year of mandatory training in hospitals. He noted that it took six years of training in public hospitals for doctors to become specialists.

“I am not against the proposal,” he said. “But it is unreasonable for any organisation to stop employees from leaving after working for seven years or invalidate their licences if they chose to leave.”

Lam said that of 500 responses he collected from public hospital healthcare professionals recently, among many push factors, most of the staff felt frustrated that their heavy workload had prevented them from providing quality services to patients.

“Other than legislation, [the government] should also consider the many reasons behind the doctors’ departure and improve [the public sector],” he said.

Lam said other than simply forcing doctors to stay, authorities should provide incentives such as a better work environment, lighter workload, promotion and subsidies.

He also suggested flexible arrangements including requiring departed doctors to work part-time at public hospitals, or work for public-private partnership programmes and care homes.

Anders Yuen Chi-man, chairman of the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff, said Lee’s proposal could not solve the manpower shortage as it was mainly caused by a number of nurses choosing to emigrate to other countries due to social and political factors.

“Those who left mostly are nurses who have worked for five to 12 years and are middle level,” he noted.

He said the plan might also prompt youngsters to study nursing overseas rather than locally, worsening the brain drain.

Yuen said the government needed to resolve the crunch from multiple perspectives, such as sociopolitical issues, developing primary healthcare and promoting healthy lifestyles to ease the strain on public hospitals, while introducing new technologies that could reduce reliance on labour.