Facing Death In Hong Kong: Recent Episodes
Mosuewyn
In this article, we have invited Dr Amy Chou, a professor of social work and social administration at The University of Hong Kong to share with us the impact of counselling in reducing one’s grief and regret on death.
I remember in one of the lectures, Amy asked the class whether we would prefer to have a foreseen or unforeseen death. My answer is to have a foreseen death so that I can make good use of my time and have a chance to say goodbye to people that I love.
However, it is not easy to start conversations about death and dying. Especially for Chinese, as we tend to deny death, this may therefore create lifelong regrets to both the patients and the bereaved.
So what can we do to avoid having regrets at the end of our life? How can we enhance our communication with our loved one and family?
Read Amy’s story and prepare yourself for a lecture on death and effective communication.
You may not know much about miscarriage, but it is actually so common that it can happen to you and me. As much as 10,000 inpatients are admitted each year for spontaneous and medical abortion, whose emotional needs might not be well taken care of.
Dr. Celia Chan provides fertility counselling services for numerous couples, and she described miscarriage as a ‘silent loss’ that may not be recognised by society. Sometimes the couples can only deal with the sorrow themselves, and the tragic experience may even affect their plan of having babies in the future.
Mental support from frontline medical staff is very important, and other parties can also help the couples who have lost their babies. Check out the article to see how Hong Kong can step further for the parents in need.
Do you still remember how it feels when you hold a baby for the first time? A newborn baby may be small in size, but at the same time very warm and heavy. Together with the loud cries, a baby has always been a symbol of hope and vitality, bringing love and joy to people.
However, not everyone has the chance to welcome their babies with comfort and joy. Mr. Chung is a father of four miscarried babies, who have all passed away under 24 weeks of gestation. When he tried to bury his first baby, he was told that the baby was not old enough to be regarded as a human being, and thus could not be cremated or buried in any cemeteries in Hong Kong.
In this article, Mr. Chung shared with us how he fought for a resting place for his baby, and his battle with the emotional distress. Read the story to know more about the father’s unforgettable experience.
For parents who lost their babies under 24 weeks of pregnancy, their biggest wish is to find their babies a decent burying ground. And the Angels’ Garden at the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery is the first burial facility in Hong Kong for these very young souls.
Anna Mok is one of the staff members responsible for setting up the garden. Having gone through a miscarriage herself, she is thankful that she can use her own experience to encourage other parents in coping with their loss. To her, this is an amazing arrangement by God.
Today, the garden is also where cemetery tours take place as part of the life and death education. Mok believes that one can only understand life by understanding death. Read the story to see how the garden developed a linkage between the dead and the alive.
Former Health Secretary of Hong Kong, Yeoh Eng-kiong, once said, “I wish I could die at home in the future, It’s a much better place. Hospitals are like a foreign environment. You know how crowded the hospitals are in Hong Kong, so it’s really hard to achieve a good quality of death there.”
However, it is rare to see people die at home in Hong Kong due to different constraints and limitations.
Rex Wong Chi-on, project coordinator (Tai Po/North) of Tang Wah Group of Hospitals’ Farewell Homecare program and Die-In-Home service project, has provided home care support to more than 200 patients since 2018.
He thinks that it is important to give patients and their families autonomy to choose the place of care and death in order to improve the quality of death and life. Yet, as an NGO, it is not easy to sustain the home care service and offer support to all patients.
Check out the story to know more about dying in place in Hong Kong!
When we go to see a doctor, we often expect he or she can cure the diseases and save our lives. But, for terminally-ill patients, there are no medications that can heal or save them from dying.
Instead of using treatment to prolong one’s life with incurable diseases, palliative care emphasizes more on providing different areas of support, for the patients’ and families’ quality of life, such as psychological and social support as they approach the end stages.
Yet, there are still some Hong Kongers holding a misunderstanding on palliative care such as giving up life and waiting to die or even never heard about it before.
So in this article, we have invited Dr Chan Lut-ming, an internist with experience in practicing palliative care at a local hospital to share his experiences of working in palliative care with some of his unforgettable cases, obstacles to promoting the service and his views on the death of patients.
Read the story and understand more about palliative care through a doctor’s eyes!
Have you ever thought about the biggest fear you would face if you were a caregiver for your loved one?
For 66-year-old Chan, who started his caregiving journey in 2015 for his 96-year-old mother suffering from swallowing difficulty, money and the uncertainty of death are his main concerns.
Currently, Chan’s mother is living at his sister’s home and getting care from a domestic helper. As he has an unpleasant experience with nursing home’s caregiving quality and safety concerns for hospitals, he believes that his own home is the best place to care for his mother.
Money and resources are the biggest obstacles for many caregivers in Hong Kong. Hiring a domestic helper or staying in a nursing home is not affordable for everyone. Therefore even Chan is in his 60s, he still needs to earn money in order to afford the daily costs of caregiving.
How does Chan's story reflect the current caregiving situation in Hong Kong? What is needed to improve Hong Kong’s quality of life and death?
Check out the story and you may find the answers!
When you heard that somebody has just lost his or her loved one, it is normal to express your condolences, but will your reaction be the same if the deceased is an animal?
Pet loss bereavement is a grief often overlooked not only by people around the pet owner, but also councillors. As more and more people depend emotionally on pets, the issue should receive more attention.
Realising pet owners’ need of emotional support, social worker Poon Wing Lok became a certified pet bereavement counselor and set up Animal Power. It is an NGO developing pilot work of pet bereavement support in Hong Kong.
One of the core events are support groups, which allow pet owners to share their inner thoughts, yet due to the lack of promotion and funding, it is not easy to maintain the service.
See this article to understand more about the ambitions and struggles in promoting pet life education in Hong Kong.
Opting for euthanasia is always an extremely difficult decision for many pet owners. Knowing that their loved ones wouldn’t be able to survive another surgery, they wouldn’t want their pet to suffer, yet at the same time, don’t want to say goodbye that soon. Pet palliative care offers an alternative for pets whose health problems are not curable, but could still live for some time.
As a type of home service, pet palliative care is more personalised and tailor-made than medical service at pet hospitals.
We invited Dr Matthew Murdoch from HomeVet to explain what pet palliative care is, and the unforgettable moments in his job. Quality of life is the top priority of his work, so it is far more than prolonging a pet’s life. With proper care, an incurable pet can live in comfort from weeks to years.
Check out our article to know more about this booming service in the pet related industry.
You may have heard of pet funeral services as there are more than ten private companies offering the service in Hong Kong. More and more people treat pets as part of the family, so instead of dumping their bodies in refuse rooms, pet owners conduct respectable funerals for their pets.
Not content with the quality of the service providers, Dr Peggy Li, who is a psychotherapist and hypnotist, founded her own company. The most special feature is that it is the only pet funeral company offering a life education programme. Children get the chance to think deeply about death, and to understand that funerals are not scary at all.
From a single woman living in a subdivided flat, to a little boy facing a pet’s death for the first time, Dr Li’s clients come from different walks of life.
Dip into the article to experience the heartbreaking and touching moments happened in the memorial.
Hamsters were once a trend back in the 2000s, when many kids kept one at home, somehow like a real life tamagotchi. These little creatures are more like toys rather than pets, and as their lifespan is very short, they are soon forgotten after they passed away, accomplishing their mission as a playmate.
However, there was one very special hamster. Its name was Yutyut, and it was a pet, or, more accurately, a friend of 22-year-old Chan Yuk Wun. To her, Yutyut was a shoulder to cry on, well, not literally, but it knew everything weighing on her mind. To commemorate Yutyut, Chan even made a coffin and a tomb for it all by herself.
In this article, we will explore the life of Yutyut, how it accompanied its master, and how its after-death arrangements were different from the mainstream pet funeral ones. Check it out for more details!