The Hong Kong Cancer Fund has doubled its work in five years and “come of age”

HONG KONG is fortunate to have first class cancer care in its public hospitals. But dealing with cancer requires more than a hospital and its staff, no matter how well trained and dedicated.

Enter the 21-year old Hong Kong Cancer Fund, whose purpose is to “offer practical services to ensure no one faces cancer alone.” In advance of the fund’s February 14 charity gala, power sat down with Chairman Sally Lo, who was honored in the mid-1990s with a Member of the British Empire (MBE), to talk about the fund’s newest activities. The gala is sponsored by Forever Mark and Julius Baer.

Tell us about the fund’s mission.
Our focus the first 10 years was to provide hope, support and information to cancer patients and their families. We started with publications on various cancer topics and we now have 36. Then we set up support and resource centers in seven hospitals and four communities. We have an information hotline that gets 4,000 calls a year. And around 11 years ago, I realized we had to incorporate public education programs to help build a “cancer smart” community, particularly with respect to breast, lung, colorectal and cervical cancers.

How have your activities grown?
Last year we had 38,000 “clients,” as we term them. We’ve doubled our service in the past five years. Between now and 2012, our expenditure is set to almost double, from HK$40 million to $75 million. I’m quite proud the Cancer Fund has come of age.

You’re also providing home care for cancer patients now, right?
When people leave hospital it takes two to eight weeks to be assessed for any kind of home help. We go in straight away. If you’ve just had surgery, you can’t go shopping. We’re helping around 30 cases at one time. We had 100 volunteers in our first training course, of which 30 passed. In 2009, we expect 80 to go for training. If patients are well enough, we also encourage them to partake in some of the complementary therapies and rehabilitation workshops held at our CancerLink Centres. Activities like yoga, art therapy or peer support programs, helps them to get out of their flats and find strength and confidence from people who are in the same boat.

And an acupuncture clinic at Prince of Wales?
This is very new, a pilot project starting next month. It’s sort of an extension of the cancer patients’ resource center. We’ll have acupuncture specialists from Shanghai. They have to have 15 years of training before they can practice. This is for pain relief and control of such symptoms as nausea and insomnia. It is certainly not a cure. It’s a quality of life service.