Monday, August 25, 2014

South China Morning Post

A couple of months ago, I was contacted by a reporter who wanted to write a story about our family. 


I have to say I love the article and thought it was a pretty true reflection of my thoughts. That said, I would extrapolate on one main thing - I do think that Hong Kong is a hard place to deal with dwarfism and the related issues. I do think that the culture in the medical system is still very behind the rest of the world. The medical care is fantastic - but the environment and the support to families is by and large, terrible. That said, we have had some amazing, kind and helpful doctors. We have doctors (in the public system) who I email and they get back to me right away. The other week, a small cabinet fell on Maddy's hand and I freaked out thinking a bone might be broken. I emailed one of her doctors and headed up to the A&E. A&E was very fast and thankfully nothing was broken - but within an hour, this doctor had called me to follow up. 

What the medical system needs here is a bit of kindness and sensitivity. They have the medical side of things under control, and it wouldn't take them THAT much effort to be a bit more kind. I bet they'd have better job satisfaction too! 

On that note, I've actually been considering issuing a formal complaint about some other doctors as I was so upset by them, but more on that another day...

Back to the article though, I still have days where I look at my kids and have an overwhelming feeling of "our family isn't complete yet" - but it would take some convincing Bernard to have any more. I must have been feeling particularly maternal the day when I said I could have 100 more ;) We will see what happens with that...

2 comments:

  1. Dear Nicole,

    So glad to see your updates. Yes, I'm completely agree with you medical system in Hong Kong really lacks human touch and warmth towards patients and their families. We were also left by ourselves to cope with diagnosis and get confused and sometime upset with comments and opinions from various medical professionals.

    It's great to hear you are all doing well, you guys are always in my prayers. Schools starts next week, Jeremy will come to watchdog on Wed and Friday mornings finish around 12am. Hope to see you around.

    Blessings,
    Lima

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  2. As the mother of a special needs child here in Hong Kong I have been following your blog for quite a while - happy to see you posting again! And I agree with you about the medical profession here. Many doctors are kind and understanding, but others just want you to listen and then leave...

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