Shortly after Erica Lam found out she was pregnant with her second child, submitting a day care application for her unborn daughter became a top priority, as places at Hong Kong childcare centres were insufficient to meet demand. Even though Lam, a nurse in her early forties, tried to secure a place early, her daughter…
This article was first published on August 26, 1976. Tragedy hits Sau Mau Ping At least seven people, including four children, were killed by the landslide that hit Sau Mau Ping Estate yesterday (August 25, 1976). Yesterday’s disaster was only a few blocks away from a slope which slipped on June 18, 1972, killing 67…
Nearly 80 per cent of low-income elderly people surveyed in Hong Kong reported physical or mental distress during periods of extreme heat, prompting calls for stronger government support and heat-prevention measures. Data from the Department of Health cited by Greenpeace identified elderly people as the city’s demographic most at risk from extreme temperatures. The number…
A former assistant warden at a residential home for the intellectually disabled in Hong Kong has been accused of raping a resident multiple times two years ago. Chung Pui-kei has been charged with five counts of rape of a mentally incapacitated woman who lived at a home in Tai Po linked to the Hong Chi…
The parents of a Hong Kong baby taken into the care of welfare authorities have lost a legal bid to have their home-born baby son returned to them, with the judge arguing the father’s child-raising methods failed to consider the possible risks. High Court Judge Queeny Au Yeung Kwai-yue on Wednesday dismissed Tsang Wai-bong’s application…
Power supply and air-conditioning disruptions across parts of Hong Kong have left residents sweltering in the extreme heat, with outages occurring at a housing estate, an office building and even a funeral home. In Yuen Long, about 2,400 households in Shui Pin Wai Estate and the surrounding area were left without power after an underground…
The fate of a five-year-old boy starved to death by his mother, who had a history of drug abuse, could have been different had social workers noticed he was “just skin and bones”, a Hong Kong judge lamented in her ruling. Just three months before the boy died in September 2022, a worker from the…
The parents of a Hong Kong infant are applying for a legal order to review welfare authorities’ decision to remove the child from their care, as they expressed “fear and anger” about arrangements for their son, Danny, to receive “medical intervention” against their will. Danny’s father, Tsang Wai-bong, and mother, Kwan Pui-sin, said they had…
In the third of a five-part Health Matters wellness series on ageing in Hong Kong, Victor Ting looks at how advances in early screening and new drug therapies are offering fresh hope for Alzheimer’s patients, as experts say the city must expand support efforts to meet rising demand. For years, Hong Kong retiree Mary Chan*…
Hong Kong’s after-school care scheme has expanded rapidly since the government removed its quota cap this school year, with some operators saying they have sufficient capacity to meet demand, while others are already recruiting more staff to keep pace. While some mothers said the programme had freed them up to return to work after years…