Super bugs are not just the stuff of drama. We should be aware of them every time we go to the doctor with a minor ailment, as RTHK's Hong Kong Connection (Pearl, 6.50pm) reminds us. Hong Kong appears to have been particularly ignorant about the limitations and, now, dangers of antibiotics. Many people are dissatisfied if they leave their doctor without a bag of antibiotics.
Doctors, too, have traditionally prescribed drugs unnecessarily. War On The Medical Front looks at the global consequences of such misuse - there is an increasing number of mutant bacteria resistant to drugs.
A related issue that should be addressed is the doctorpatient relationship. Few doctors seem to expect their patients to know the difference between a bacteria or a virus, or to have any opinion of the drugs they are prescribed. Until they credit patients with intelligence we cannot expect greater understanding of the antibiotic crisis.
Super bugs in their more dramatic form lurk in tonight's Brimstone (Pearl, 8.30pm), with typhoid-carrier-from-Hell Sally Annie McGee returning to life. She kills anyone who comes in contact with her saliva, and plans to infect a city through its water supply.
Medical ethics and communicable diseases are ever present in ER (Pearl, 9.30pm). But tonight the ethics embrace Chinese sensibilities, a rare theme.
One issue in Sticks And Stones is whether intern Lucy should let a Chinese woman know that she has advanced cancer. Her relatives insist that the old woman, played by Beulah Quo, should be kept in blissful ignorance, which goes against the ideal in the west that patients have the right to know what ails them.
