Chronic illness: don’t struggle in silence, Hong Kong’s 300 support groups tell city’s 1.4 million sufferers
- Wan Chai exhibition this month features an array of self-help organisations aiming to encourage patients to speak up instead of retreating into the shadows
At a health exhibition in Wan Chai, visitors crowd around a “clinic for self-diagnosis” – a wall that lists a ream of common ailments. There is no doctor or nurse on site to consult.
The conditions are not all exactly medical – they include forgetfulness, sloppiness and cellphone addiction. Patients can diagnose themselves according to the details given, and wrap coloured strings around knobs on the wall, each shade representing a source of help they usually turn to, such as parents or friends.
The interactive display is part of this month’s Mutual Help Human Library and Exhibition, held by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. The event seeks to raise awareness of more than 300 self-help groups in the city, particularly those dealing with stress-related disorders, but also terminal diseases such as cancer.
The groups send inspiring figures to the exhibition to talk about their experiences, such as patients with rare conditions and activists attempting to overcome social prejudice. The aim is to shed light on the struggle of some 1.4 million sufferers of chronic and mental illnesses in Hong Kong.
“To many people’s surprise, the line between ‘being sick’ and being well is not that clear, as a lot of commonly seen indispositions can be early signs of more severe illness,” society senior manager Pun Yau-wai says, citing headaches and insomnia as examples.
