A day in Kwai Chung in 1992

A Christmas Memory

The scene: Princess Margaret Hospital, Kwai Chung, Hong Kong

The  time: December 1992

I bought some tofu in Tsuen Wan, took it to my place in Sham Tseng (1/2 hour journey in hot [31C] weather).

Two days later I noticed I hadn't passed any urine in that whole time.   My doctor prescribed intravenous feeding for at least 24 hours.

So here I was, in that hospital in Kwai Chung with a feeding  tube attached to my arm lying on my bed with nothing to do, and hardly anybody (only the doctors and nurses) who spoke much [any] English.

My particular problem was not common.  So I was placed in a large ward of terminal patients, nearly all of them (I was told, couldn't verify it conclusively) suffering from emphysema and related ailments, brought on by smoking and working in smoke-infused factory environments even if they didn't smoke cigarettes.

I was only there a 24 hours or so.  During the night, the patient on one side of me coughed incessantly.  At some point the coughing stopped (2 am, 3am?).  A short time later, orderlies came, and the coughing stopped. 

In the morning, I went to the washroom (on the other side of the ward), and for the first time since the day before saw that bed clearly -- it was unused.

The inescapable conclusion was that I had just heard a man breathe his last.  We didn't have a common language, and in any case he was too sick to talk. The entire room (except for me) was more like a hospice than a place where people got well.

Fortunately I do not smoke.

The next day, the doctors examined me and let me check out.  I caught a flight out of Hong Kong the next day. I returned, but only after a good rest in Vancouver to absorb that experience (and many others in that first year in China).