Medicine for everyone
The history of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals goes back to 1851, and can be traced directly to Kwong Fook I-tsz, a small temple built at Tai Ping Shan Street in Hong Kong Island's Western district. It was used by local people to house the spirit tablets of their ancestors.
In those days, the welfare needs of the Chinese community were often overlooked. The government did provide western-style medical care, but most Chinese didn't want to use it. Over the years, the temple was taken over as a refuge by the aged, the sick, the destitute and homeless people, and it became dirt-infested, overcrowded and dilapidated.
A group of Chinese leaders raised funds and petitioned the governor for support to open the first Chinese medicine hospital in Hong Kong. It alarmed the Hong Kong government to learn that there was a pressing need for public Chinese medicine services. The community leaders took it upon themselves to raise funds for a hospital and an administration building nearby. After much negotiation, the government finally granted the group a piece of land in Po Yan Street, in Western, and the Tung Wah Hospital was built in 1870. It marked the beginning of Hong Kong's second oldest charitable non-governmental organisation.
As well as ministering to sick and poor Chinese, Tung Wah gradually branched out to provide many charity and social welfare services. Free schools were built on both Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula.
With the expansion of urban areas and population growth, the Kwong Wah Hospital in Waterloo Road, Kowloon and Tung Wah Eastern Hospital in So Kon Po, Hong Kong Island were built. In 1931, the three hospitals were consolidated under a single board of directors and collectively called the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals.
