【明報專訊】PAEDIATRIC doctors are leaving the Hospital Authority's employment at a rate as high as 8.1 percent. In July this year, no more than 14 candidates responded to the Hospital Authority's recruitment exercise to fill 30 vacancies in paediatrics. In fact, public hospitals in Hong Kong have long suffered from a shortage of doctors, and this is of course the result of inadequate medical planning and the insufficient intake of medical students. Furthermore, because of the imbalance between public and private hospitals, many public hospital doctors are leaving for the private sector. It has long been anticipated that some medical specialty services and departments will one day collapse. In the long term, the government should as soon as possible review its medical planning, and increase the intake of medical students, while in the short term, the work of recruiting overseas doctors should be speeded up to meet the urgent needs of the public.