‘Open wound that won’t heal’: a Hong Kong couple’s emotional fight against ‘clinical waste’ label on child in miscarriage
They are appealing to the Catholic Church to accept the body of their son for a proper burial, after a bureaucratic battle over medical classification
Having to mourn the death of a child is every mother’s worst nightmare. But for grieving Hong Kong mum Angela, the ordeal was far worse.
In the past month, she has been haunted on sleepless nights by the image of her dead son, Wally, dumped in a rubbish bin among a sea of discarded syringes, used surgical gloves and bloodstained dressings, to be trucked off to a landfill.
Hospital Authority policy classifies a fetus lost less than 24 weeks into pregnancy as “clinical waste”, instead of a stillborn. At slightly over 15 weeks into pregnancy before her miscarriage, Angela’s baby fell into this category.
But devout Catholics Angela and Kevin want the body of their child back for a proper funeral.
“I cannot sleep at night. I keep thinking of what they are going to do with him … It’s horrible. I am supposed to be resting and getting over the birth process, but this is tormenting me,” Angela said.
“It’s like an open wound that won’t heal,” she recounted of the row with the hospital.
After a month of exchanges with officials – with the involvement of a lawyer and two lawmakers – the couple learned on Thursday that they could get Wally back on the condition that they arrange for a burial for the body.
The couple are not using their real names as they initially planned to mourn in private. But they feel the need to speak out so as to spare other couples in similar situations the same fate. They do not want others to be deprived of their children for “a second time”.
At 6am one morning in April, Angela woke up to find herself bleeding at home. She plunged into critical condition with her blood pressure plummeting.
I cannot sleep at night. I keep thinking of what they are going to do with him … It’s horrible.
“It was a heart-wrenching shock for us,” she said.
The couple wondered how a miscarriage could happen just two weeks after a critical scan showed the baby alive and kicking.
A procedure to cut the umbilical cord was performed at Princess Margaret. But as its operation theatre was full at the time, the couple decided – on the suggestion of doctors – to relocate to a private hospital for the removal of the placenta.
That was when the bad news hit them – Angela was told she could not take Wally with her.
“I almost fell out of bed. They were saying I couldn’t take him away with me because of health and safety issues,” she said, adding that staff members also told her the baby was the hospital’s property.
This was like losing the baby for “a second time” after the miscarriage, she said.
Kevin recalled that the nurses were as friendly as “angels”, but there was little they could do.
Two days later, he returned with a family member to perform a baptism on the body, which was kept frozen at the hospital.
Kevin said: “The nurses allowed us to hold our baby boy.”
They wrapped Wally in a blanket – like a “little sleeping child” with his fully formed hands and legs – and took a picture.
I am not asking to change the law, I just want to bury my baby in a Catholic cemetery according to my beliefs – surely the Catholic Church can grant me that
The hospital’s acting chief support service team offered the couple a condolence card with Wally’s finger and toe prints.
Kevin praised the nurses for their kindness, and said he hoped that they would not be reprimanded for their actions.
But at one point, the couple was upset that the hospital had proposed to cremate Wally at a pet crematorium. “Are you suggesting that my baby is a pet?” Kevin said.
Over the course of the battle, the couple, who has two children, also struggled to explain to their eldest son why his youngest brother had not yet come home. The six-year-old had earlier named his unborn sibling after seeing an ultrasound scan.
Uncertainties remain for the couple, as Wally’s “clinical waste” status meant none of the city’s six public crematoria and four public cemeteries designed for burial would accept the body.
Kevin has reached out to the Catholic diocese of Hong Kong, which runs cemeteries in the city. The diocese is considering helping the couple.
In his appeal, Kevin also said that it would be against Catholic beliefs if their request was turned down, since according to their faith, a fetus is considered a baby the moment it is conceived.
“I am not asking to change the law, I just want to bury my baby in a Catholic cemetery according to my beliefs – surely the Catholic Church can grant me that,” he said.
