Peggy Chu Sau-kwan is often heard on television purveying a message scary enough to make drug addicts wet themselves.
Addicts, she warns in a government public announcement, have a bladder capacity only one-fifth of normal, so they need to go to the toilet every 15 minutes.
'That means when you take a bus, you need to get off every 15 minutes. Every 15 minutes ...' she intones.
There is no one better qualified than Dr Chu, a senior urology doctor at Tuen Mun Hospital, to issue such a warning, because she discovered in 2007 the relationship between ketamine abuse and bladder dysfunction.
'I am merely recounting what my patients have been telling me.'
Dr Chu this month received the Hospital Authority Outstanding Staff Award, given to employees demonstrating professional excellence.
According to her research for the Narcotics Division, 30 to 40 per cent of ketamine addicts aged 15 to 30 had kidney dysfunctions. She will continue research in this area.
