Two past Spirit of Hong Kong winners show need to extend helping hand in time of crisis
- Chinese medicine practitioner Douglas Shum offers consultations, usually for free, to the elderly at his clinic and encourages them to get a Covid-19 test
- Ivan Chan runs the Home Repair Learning academy, where middle-aged residents learn handyman skills, with some going on to find paying jobs
Apart from providing traditional Chinese medicine services for low-income patients at Light of Raphael, a social enterprise he founded with friends in 2009, Shum has helped collect and distribute masks for cleaners since the Covid-19 outbreak began in January.
“They don’t have enough personal protective gear, while working hard to clean our city,” he said.
Shum noted that many elderly people from less well-off families went largely ignored by the wider community and suffered silently during the pandemic.
“These elderly residents are worried about the coronavirus, but some of them do not want to get tested out of fear of medical procedures,” he said. “I always try to ease their anxiety and encourage them to get a test at designated locations early.”
