HAD THE TSUNAMIS that devastated south Asia arrived a decade ago, Dr Kitty Wu's plans for the New Year would have been a write-off. Rather than seeing-in a much-needed break at home with her family, she would have been stationed in her office, charged with a daunting task: co-ordinating a counselling service for victims traumatised by the disaster.
'It would have been a difficult time,' says Wu, a clinical psychologist at the Hong Kong Psychological Society.
Thanks to the progress Hong Kong has made towards offering post-trauma assistance, however, Wu no longer needs to face the overwhelming work alone. Counselling hotlines and debriefings for the distraught are commonplace today.
A Social Welfare Department hotline was in place just days after disaster struck, and the Hospital Authority's senior clinical psychologist, Rosalie Kwong, is already in Thailand as part of the medical team.
In the 1990s, post-trauma assistance was still a relatively overlooked service. The focus then was mainly on attending to those with physical injuries. Wu recalls the first time she and her colleagues were thrust into action: the tragic crush in Lan Kwai Fong which left 21 people dead and scores injured - and shocked - 12 years ago today.
'That was very gruelling, because all we could do was to operate a hotline, with each of us manning it for a few hours after work,' she says of a service that was hastily established just a few days after the tragedy. 'There was only one line, so if someone rang in, others seeking help wouldn't get through - it was the time before mobile phones.'