LettersFor Hong Kong medical care, private is not always better – as my late mother found out

My mother passed away at Ruttonjee Hospital’s Cardiac and Intensive Care Unit on the afternoon of May 22, 2016. When my cousin informed the nurse that my husband and I were on our way from Singapore to see her for the last time, she was kind enough to let my mother stay in the unit until the two of us finally got to see her; and we were grateful for that.

The nurse also showed us much humanity as she asked my cousins, and our domestic helper, several times if they would like to see the deceased one last time, before moving her body to the mortuary.

Our domestic helper recalled the terrible treatment received when my mother first consulted the accident and emergency department of a leading private hospital in Hong Kong on the night that she was unwell.

When she told the in-house doctor that she was probably having a heart attack, he just laughed it off loudly. Even though my mother insisted that he contact our family cardiologist for a second opinion, he never did so. Despite her blood pressure reading of 190/100, he still insisted on discharging her home for further observation. Eventually, after four hours of resting at home, my mother was not feeling any better and went back to the A&E department. Another in-house doctor immediately did an ECG scan on her, and confirmed the diagnosis of a blocked heart artery. Due to a lack of beds, she was transferred to Ruttonjee, where she died the following day.