In a first for Hong Kong, university project offers emotional support to cancer sufferers
Once they are hired, about 40 health care staff will provide screening and mental health advice to patients and carers once they are diagnosed with cancer
Like other cancer survivors who completed long and painful treatment and survived, Ng was troubled by many lingering physical symptoms such as chest pains, breathing difficulties and endless tiredness. This left her worrying all the time about whether her breast cancer was making a comeback.
The mother of two in her 40s said she felt emotionally distressed and had no way to understand whether these symptoms were problematic until she received help from the University of Hong Kong, which is developing a revolutionary care model to screen cancer patients suffering emotional distress.
“I often felt shortness of breath and chest distress and I needed a lot of sleep but would still feel very tired afterwards,” said Ng, who gave only her surname.
“I was always worried that I might be suffering a reoccurrence and that the cancer might have already spread to my lungs.”
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Her psychological condition was discovered after an examination conducted at Queen Mary Hospital under a project headed by Dr Wendy Lam Wing-tak, head of behavioural sciences at the university’s school of public health.
“After the counselling, I knew these physical symptoms were perfectly normal following chemotherapy. So I stopped worrying about it. Dr Lam suggested that I do yoga to rebuild my body strength and that helped a lot,” Ng said.