Tony Ling Siu-chi, president of the Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association, said the Hospital Authority is using the figure to pave the way for importing foreign doctors. The turnover rate ranged between 4.4 percent and 4.6 percent between 2008 and 2016.

Authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling said that 4.6 percent of full-time doctors and 6.5 percent of nurses at public hospitals have quit, a "worrisome situation" caused by the emigration wave.

In a radio program yesterday, Ling said the turnover rate was not too high compared to the statistics of the past 10 years, adding that the number reached as high as about 6 percent in 2017 and 2018.

However, although the turnover rate hasn't fluctuated much, more doctors leaving public hospitals are considering emigrating to other countries instead of switching to private hospitals, Ling said.

"Most public doctors quitting their jobs were leaving for private hospitals in the past. Few people would consider emigration before, but now many colleagues are thinking about and planning to move to other countries," he said.

"I think the emigration trend among doctors is the same as the overall situation in Hong Kong. Many people in many other sectors, such as the education sector, have left Hong Kong and emigrated to other places."

But Ling added that the situation is not that serious, and Fan sees it as an opportunity for introducing overseas-trained doctors into the Hong Kong medical system.

A council member of the association, Arisina Ma Chung-yee, said on another radio show yesterday that the exodus of public doctors had slowed down over the past two years but rebounded from the beginning of this year because of the improvement in the local economy.

Many of those leaving are middle-level specialists in anesthetics and radiology as there is a greater need for them in the private market, Ma said, adding that Hong Kong is facing a shortage of experts in neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery.