According to Legco, Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun caused Sars because she did not humiliate the central and Guangdong governments by sending a fact-finding group to Guangzhou based on unverified rumours and official public denials. Yet there is silence about how China deliberately withheld information and actively lied to Dr Chan - acts that directly led to all our Sars deaths and disabilities. The result was that Legco punished Dr Chan.
I am reminded of a time when I was in a hospital outside Hong Kong. An elderly man insulted an excellent nurse to her face because of her ethnic origin and rudely demanded to be assigned one more to his personal taste. The matron on duty informed him that this nurse was giving him excellent health care, was wiping his filthy bottom, smelling his foul breath, suffering his abusive remarks and still caring for him without comment. The patient was informed that he would not get another nurse, and that he was now expected to say 'thank you' when the nurse arrived to care for him and again when she finished her duties. Because of this rebuke the man began to show the nurse the courtesy and consideration that she was due.
Would that our elected leaders would follow this example. However, Legco is fixated on punishing our own health-care professionals. Not because it brings results - you have only to look at the progress made on infectious- disease control in the wake of the two other Sars inquiries - but because it is good press in an election year. Until Legco exposes the central government with as much vigour as they pick on our own overworked and under-appreciated health-care professionals, death and disease will continue to come to us from the mainland.
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Fest 'success'
So, despite all the proof that the event was poorly managed (and to the tune of $100 million), badly received, a total flop, despite the very detailed inquiry, talk about the Independent Commission Against Corruption looking into how the money was spent and a TV special that was 'dead on arrival', all that has happened is that Mike Rowse, head of InvestHK, has received a little slap on his wrist and the government has moved swiftly to brush the entire Harbour Fest fiasco under the carpet.