The waiting time for specialist outpatient services has been a constant concern for various sectors of the community and for the families of patients. This issue is particularly critical for patients in advanced stages of illness who urgently require surgery or complementary tests, as prolonged waiting periods not only increase stress but may also compromise the appropriate timing of treatment. The volume of consultations for specialist outpatient services, hospitalisations, and emergency services reached around 805,000 visits in 2023. Among the institutions, the Conde S. Januário Hospital and various health centres, as central hubs for medical care, are under immense pressure and are unable to fully meet the current healthcare needs of the population. This gap between supply and demand reflects a real structural contradiction between the available human resources and Macau’s healthcare needs.
The opening of Macau Union Hospital has brought vitality to the local healthcare system, relieving some of the diagnostic and specialised treatment burden of the main public hospital. However, the shortage of medical resources is a chronic issue that Macau has faced for a long time. With the annual rise in new cases, the current system struggles to keep up with growing demand, which is exacerbated by the accumulation of new and pending cases, creating a vicious cycle of increasingly long waiting times. Additionally, the lack of an efficient coordination mechanism among hospitals further worsens the difficulty in booking appointments. Complex cases often require patients to visit multiple departments, leading to considerable waste of time and energy. More seriously, the long training cycles and high technical requirements for specialist doctors make the talent shortage even more acute. This imbalance between supply and demand compromises not only the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment but also significantly increases the pressure on healthcare professionals.
Therefore, in order to build a high-quality and efficient medical services system, the government should adopt a multifaceted approach to reform the current model of specialist outpatient services. Measures should include creating a flexible mechanism for allocating human resources and optimising waiting times. For instance, a unified appointment platform could be developed to integrate the resources of public hospitals, private hospitals, and health centres, enabling inter-institutional scheduling and centralised appointment management, thus avoiding duplication or waste of available slots. In parallel, the authorities should consider implementing a tiered care and referral system, directing minor cases to family doctors or community health centres, and introducing triage systems using artificial intelligence (such as priority algorithms based on medical records and test results) to automatically assign urgent cases to specialists, thereby reducing pressure on outpatient services and optimising the overall allocation of medical resources.
Currently, medical training in Macau takes time, while the surgical and diagnostic needs of patients in advanced stages are urgent. To mitigate the shortage of resources, the authorities should strengthen cooperation with top hospitals in Hong Kong and Mainland China — for example, by bringing in external specialists for short-term missions (such as weekend surgical teams), in order to prioritise pending advanced cases, shorten patients’ waiting times, and increase treatment efficiency, thereby helping to ease the pressure caused by the imbalance between supply and demand.
Macau Civil Servants Association
