Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau witnessed the signing of strategic collaboration agreements by The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong (CMHHK) with the Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital (SZTCMH) and the Hebei Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine (HBHCM) respectively yesterday and today at CMHHK.

The agreements laid a foundation and set the direction for collaboration on various fronts between CMHHK and the two Chinese medicine (CM) hospitals in Shenzhen Municipality and Hebei Province.

Prof Lo and member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Shenzhen Municipal Committee and the Party Leadership Group of the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government Chen Qing witnessed the signing of the Strategic Collaboration Agreement between SZTCMH and CMHHK by Chairperson of the Board of Directors of CMHHK Operator Wong Kwai-huen and President of SZTCMH Prof Zhu Meiling yesterday.

Prof Lo also witnessed the signing of the Strategic Collaboration Agreement between HBHCM and CMHHK by Mr Wong and Director of HBHCM Prof Zhi Zheng today. The signing marked the official commencement of collaboration between CMHHK and the two CM hospitals.

The health chief said that the establishment of strategic partnerships with the CM hospitals in Shenzhen Municipality and Hebei Province also responds to the national goals, as set out in the 15th Five-Year Plan, of better integrating into the overall national development and fostering the inheritance and innovation of CM.

“'Hong Kong will continue to leverage the institutional strengths of 'one country, two systems' to promote collaborations between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland in the healthcare sector. At the same time, Hong Kong will strive to serve as a bridgehead for CM to go global by leveraging its role as an important window for exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and Western cultures,” he added.

The two strategic collaboration agreements cover numerous areas, including exchange of CM talent, cross-boundary distance discussions of cases, establishment of a sharing platform for drug interaction alert notifications, organisation of CM academic conferences, development of a scientific research network, as well as other related projects on education, scientific research and healthcare services that are conducive to CM development in Hong Kong-Shenzhen and Hong Kong-Hebei.

Apart from these two agreements, CMHHK has already signed strategic collaboration agreements with key hospitals in several provincial-level administrative regions, namely Guangdong Province, Beijing Municipality, Tianjin Municipality, Jiangsu Province, Shandong Province, Sichuan Province and the Macao Special Administrative Region, as well as with TCM-Klinik Bad Kötzting in Germany and Western Sydney University in Australia.