Comments on: Hong Kong is a Terrible Place to Die

By: Angela

Angela — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:10:19 +0000

I’m a Brit, who has lived in HK for about 9 years now & in my experience, HK is an amazing place to live – not sure about the care for the old or dying here, but sounds horrible.The ‘after-death’ situation in HK compared to the UK isn’t comparable.
My husband died in Feb 2008 & although we had a fantastic wake for him, the whole process running up to that was traumatic. A very different experience to what it would have been if in the UK. The UK & HK have different cultures we know, but those differences have never been so apparent to me as it was when it came to the funeral & the run up to it. Jim was cremated here. The crematorium was ugly, horrible and very disrespectful. The funeral director was OK although didn’t have the compassion we have come to expect from those in the UK. The paperwork & process & public morgue was just unbelievable. It really made a traumatic experience all the more traumatic!
So my advice to a foreigner would be – live in HK but don’t die here ;o)

By: Yuen Long Jai

Yuen Long Jai — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:34:12 +0000

Anybody who has been to a HK rest home will know exactly why HK was at the bottom of this list. Most of these places are just large rooms with dozens of Dilbert style cubicles possessing a bed and a cabinet where the residents will spend the rest of their lives in. There is little if any recreational activity, certainly never any group outings and given the lack of space, no areas for social interaction. The staff are mainly housewives with no medical training whose role is mostly to feed the residents or change their diapers. Most of the residents have no families or for others, their families could not cope with them anymore. Even in death here there is no dignity, with maybe yours funeral being held in a Hung Hom funeral home (involuntarily shudders) and your ashes dumped god knows where. As for the expats, I have never heard of a single expat voluntarily dying of old age here. The public hospitals are just not up to the task and in case are there any western style funeral homes here where your body is not taken therein in one of those weird looking trucks ? and what happens to your body after that ? I dont know of any western graveyards still operating. The one in Happy Valley doesn’t seem to have had a new grave in decades. In any event I would imagine the cost would be astronomical.

By: mumphLT

mumphLT — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:48:55 +0000

‘I think most people would want that medical option but the UK Law makers just don`t want to touch it.’

On the contrary there is guidance on assisted suicide:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253691/Assisted-suicide-case-relatives-charged.html

http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/

http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2009/09/23/assisted-suicide-euthanasia-guidelines-laid-keir-starmer-director-public-prosecutions/

By: Fernando

Fernando — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:56:07 +0000

Well, it’s a very specific survey, about care and attitudes in the final days and months of people’s lives. Whatever the relative merits of Hong Kong for fit and healthy mid-lifers I can’t imagine much of a case for this being the best place in the world for the very elderly.

By: Lanta

Lanta — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:34:35 +0000

HK being 20th out of over 80 countries listed is not so “terrible”, plus another 120 or so that are not on the list.

One big fault in the UK is, from the Economist “They concentrate more on preventing death (which they see as a medical failure) rather than on helping people die without suffering pain, discomfort and distress”.

For those that don`t want the long suffering end they either have to go overseas or have a partner break the law and kill them out of compassion. I think most people would want that medical option but the UK Law makers just don`t want to touch it.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:25:46 +0000

I’ve known one person well who has died in Hong Kong and it was pretty depressing. His final years were spent in a ‘care and attention’ home for the elderly, and while he was ‘fed and watered’, I wouldn’t say he got much care or attention. I suppose the problem in Hong Kong is that flats are small and people work long hours, so the elderly are just shipped out to retirement homes when they cannot look after themselves. At retirement places, some people have their own personal domestic helper which means better treatment, but the overall institutionalisation of the places is depressing.

In the UK more and more elderly people stay at their own home, get help at home (subsidised by the local government), and finally die at home in their own bed. Doctors / health workers are perhaps more understanding about death, and I know personally of cases where terminally ill patients in a lot of pain have been given large doses of morphine.