Today was our last day and we spent the afternoon visiting the Haven of Hope Hospital. This was our first visit to the Western Medicine side of a Hong Kong Hospital and it was really interesting to see how similar Hong Kong hospitals were to U.S. hospitals. I thought we were going to visit a hospice and see how TCM played a role in palliative care. It turned out that the hospital had a hospice unit, so I guess I wasn’t completely mistaken.The tour of the hospice care was perhaps my favorite part of the day. I never worked in or visited a hospice, so this was my first experience seeing one in operation. I thought it was wonderful how the hospice nurses spoke of the importance in getting the patients outside to feel the sunlight and smell the fresh air --- it’s something that we often forget to consider when patients become non-ambulatory or otherwise dependent on machines and devices. The fact that they had designed the ramp to the courtyard to accommodate hospital beds spoke highly of their determination that all patients have the opportunity to spend some of their last days outside the confines of the hospital walls.
Leslie Wheeless (TCM Journal March 17, 2009)
Photography by Rick Allen
