RSSA Catholic charity´s free traditional-medicine clinic, launched amid the current economic crisis, has seen more than 1,000 patients in the first five months of its operation.
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Since April, the free clinic, run by the Ozanam Service Centre of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Hong Kong (SSVP), has been dispensing Chinese medicine and providing acupuncture treatment to needy patients.
About 20 licensed traditional Chinese medical practitioners offer free consultations three times a week to an average of 150 patients per month. These are mostly elderly and lower-income people, but also include clergy and nuns.
Shum Hong-yuen, a 29-year-old private practitioner, told UCA News that he was inspired to offer this free service to the poor, after noticing how medical costs for chronically patients could be a burden for some families, especially the low-income ones. Traditional treatments could cost at least HK$150 (US$20) per session.
He said he rallied a few former classmates, all licensed and practicing practitioners, to cooperate with the SVDP to start the free clinic early this year.
Chau Lung, an SSVP member and supervisor of Ozanam Centre, said his group provides the venue, medicines and equipment while the Chinese-medicine practitioners provide free consultations on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Saturday afternoons.
There were only four such volunteers when the clinic first started. The clinic has three medical beds for acupuncture and other treatments.
Chau said many elderly prefer traditional Chinese medicine rather than Western medicine because they feel Chinese medicine is more holistic in its treatment of ailments.
He said the responses from patients so far have been “encouraging and positive.”
Shum gave the example of an elderly woman, who complained of low back pain, and who used to come for acupuncture once a week. The group later learnt that she was a scavenger. Still, she would place HK$20 inside the donation box at the center each time she came. “The amount was minimal, but her action is an encouragement to our service,” he said.
As the clinic is now more known in the neighborhood, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who works nearby even donated a medical bed to them, which helped shorten the patients´ waiting time, he added.
A volunteer practitioner at Ozanam Service Centre surnamed Leung told UCA News that she thinks the free service also benefits the practitioners in terms of broadening their knowledge.
“Here, I serve in the dispensary and notice how different practitioners would prescribe medicines in a slightly different way. I would then ask them for the reasons and learn from the discussions,” she said.
Sister Suen Yin-wan of the Franciscans of Missionaries of Mary, who is undergoing treatment at the clinic for leg pains, said she comes not because the medical consultation is free, but because the practitioners are professional and caring.
The SSVP says it now plans to operate a second free clinic.
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