Operation Santa Claus: Hong Kong centre offers free care for disabled people ‘from cradle to grave’
- Some of the Home of Loving Faithfulness residents such as Fung Tai and Fu Fu have spent more than half a century there
- HOLF saw a HK$1.2 million drop in donations last year compared with 2021 after long-time donors either died or left Hong Kong.
Fung Tai*, a 72-year-old woman with cerebral palsy, held on to a red leather purse as she sat in a wheelchair at a facility for people with disabilities in Hong Kong.
She broke into a radiant smile as soon as she saw acting coordinating superintendent Gretchen Ryan and senior manager Wenda Wong Pui-ying of the Home of Loving Faithfulness (HOLF) in Sheung Shui walk into the common room.
“She always has her handbag,” Ryan said. “A long-time volunteer brought back a Christmas gift for her recently. I’m holding it for her, and it will be a handbag.”
The home’s oldest resident has been living in HOLF for 57 years. That is not unusual.
Next to her in a wheelchair sat 55-year-old Ping Tsui*, who is blind, has cerebral palsy and has been there since the age of five.
Che Kin*, 53, was also aged five when admitted to the home with Down syndrome.
But HOLF’s longest resident is 64-year-old Fu Chen*, who suffers from cerebral palsy and requires 24-hour care. He has lived there for 58 years.
“His family transferred him here,” Wong said. “His parents were unable to take care of him.”
Like families of other residents, they were poor and worn out by his disability.
Since its foundation by two British Christian missionary women in 1965, HOLF has loved and cared for children and adults suffering from mild to severe intellectual and physical disabilities, including Down syndrome and cerebral palsy.
Its mission is to provide residents with free good quality of life in a Christian family setting. Over the years, it has taken care of 82 people with disabilities and currently has 15 residents, with the youngest being 14 and the oldest 72.
“It sounds like a small number, but if you think about raising a family for a lifetime, 82 is quite significant because we’re providing lifetime care,” Ryan said. “There’s no other place in Hong Kong like this that provides lifetime care for free.”
Ryan added that other centres had age restrictions, forcing families to find a new care home for their loved ones when they reached a certain age.
“This is the centre of last resort for those in greatest need, whether it’s an ageing parent, those in extreme financial need, or orphans,” Ryan said.
“We care for our residents in a family setting. It’s comforting for their families to know this is the place for them to live till the end of their life because it provides care from cradle to grave, at no cost to the recipient.”
But it has been challenging for HOLF to come up with the necessary funding to run the home, which provides around-the-clock care from feeding to changing diapers and bathing.
HOLF saw a HK$1.2 million (US$153,410) drop in donations last year compared with 2021 after long-time donors either died or left Hong Kong.
Ryan said HOLF was “grateful” for the Operation Santa Claus (OSC) fundraising campaign not only for its donation but also highlighting the services it provided to draw in a new generation of donors and volunteers.
HOLF is among the 15 charitable projects funded this year by OSC, an annual fundraising initiative that has been held by the South China Morning Post and public broadcaster RTHK since 1988.
Optimistic that all would work out, Ryan and Wong said they hoped to take in a few more residents from other agencies to help alleviate the pressure on care facilities, which were in short supply.
“We’ve heard there are families that have had a child on the wait list for 10 years, even 15 years,” Ryan said.
So far, OSC has raised HK$369 million (US$47.2 million) to support the Hong Kong community through 338 charitable projects.
* Names have been changed to protect resident’s privacy
