Dear Hong Kong Red Cross Supporters：

Madam Lee bonds very well with Connie (left) and Betty (right), the CDME volunteers. She always shares interesting live stories with them.

Madam Lee lives alone in a public housing estate in Sham Shui Po. In earlier days, she worked in a garment factory together with her husband. With garment industry withering, she became a catering cleaning worker. Working hard with her husband, they fed the family from hand to mouth. When their three sons were still at school age, she also took care of all their daily meals despite having to work full-time. In short, she was literally the “master” of the family – both in and out.

“In those days, I hardly felt tired even having to work for long, and having to do all sorts of household chores. As long as we live happily together as a family, we are satisfied.” Feeling physically fit and with strong endurance. Upon retirement, she took it for granted of enjoying more family times with her husband, sons and lovely grandchildren. Out of the blue, merely two years later, she was diagnosed of suffering from brain tumor. In the turbulent year of SARS outbreak, she underwent, and survived, a major brain operation. Since then, she has to rely on long-term medication for managing hypertension and diabetes – the two chronic diseases having diagnosed prior to her retirement. And all sorts of old-age malaises have also marked her retirement days ever since.

When Madam Lee talks about the past, she is always in sorrow. Encouragement and support from volunteers have made her more positive and acceptive of her past.

Madam Lee was referred by a District Elderly Community Centre to join the CDME Project. Objective data over her 12-month participation indicated her great improvements in self-managing hypertension and diabetes in all the three aspects of physical, psychological and social areas.

Besides a leap in “scores”, Madam Lee says: “I have been much happier now. The two “ladies” do not mind about my indulgence in long-winded conversations of the good old days all the time, or my tearful outburst whenever talking about my son. They always encourage me to look at various life problems from positive angles.” About a year ago, her second son, who lived in Britain, suffered from a sudden onset of illness on his flight to Malaysia and was lost. The traumatic nightmare brought Madam Lee onto the edge of emotional collapse. How hard it would be for a crumbled elderly to well manage her own chronic diseases under such dire circumstances?

The two “ladies” Madam Lee refers to are Connie Leung and Betty Wong – Red Cross volunteers of the CDME Project.

Over the past decade, Madam Lee has been suffering from dizziness from time to time. She can hardly figure out whether it is due to her brain ailment or glycemia levels. Regardless, she has been a good patient in terms of timely attending follow-up consultations and taking medication as instructed. But when it came to the reminders by doctors and nurses on proper diet and doing exercise, she could not comprehend much, and often ended up with complying next to nothing. With her three sons having set up their own families, and her husband passed away 10 years ago, she now lives alone. For most of her life, she has been the one taking care of others and the master of her family. She always believed that she had no need, and did not want, to disturb others. Thus, she seldom revealed her sickness to her family members or friends on her own. Even with queries about foods or drugs, she rarely made enquiry with nursing or other professionals.

A few months ago, Madam Lee was prescribed with new medication. Following instruction, she took the medicine at home several times, but felt uncomfortable after every dose — her hands trembled, her stomach was hungry, and she felt worried if her situation has gone worse. The visit by Connie and Betty, the volunteers, was more than timely. Connie, a student in a nursing degree programme, believed that the responses were due to hypoglycemia. Besides teaching Madam Lee proper ways of handling, she helped her call the hospital to arrange for earlier consultation so that the doctor could re-assess her situation and adjust her dosage sooner. Since then, Madam Lee felt less worried about bothering others, and would consult “experts” whenever feeling confused.

“The two ladies also teach me knowledge about diabetes and hypertension. Now, I would always bring candies with me, to prepare for feeling dizzy due to low blood sugar level. In the past, I loved dishes of stronger flavour, and cooked with lots of soy sauce or salt. I seldom ate vegetables, as that always gave me diarrhea. The ladies teach me how to reduce salt (sodium) in my diet, how to supplement vegetable fibre with beans and fruits …” Occasionally, when the “ladies” spotted too strong flavouring in her diet, they would again offer her with “expert” reminder.

Connie and Betty visit Madam Lee once every three weeks, and made caring phone calls to her in between. At visits, they will conduct her with simple body check, and follow through the individual care plan designed by the nursing staff. The plan includes providing elderly with knowledge of managing their chronic diseases, such as proper diet and practical physical exercises. Through friendly conversations and caring, our volunteers can help encouraging elderly with good practices regularly. They also accompany the elderly to visit facilities in their own community, which provide various support resources to consolidate their social and support network.

Simple actions of care and love cheer up Madam Lee with warmth.

Though it has been more than a year since her son’s sudden death, Madam Lee still cannot refrain from bursting into tears whenever mentioning her son. She feels uneasy staying alone at home, as sad memories always pop up. Yet, she also feels uneasy with others’ company, as conversation with others may touch on family and trigger her emotions. Thus, she does not prefer hanging out with others. Most of the days, she prefers going out in the morning alone, taking a walk at nearby garden alone, then carrying a few thick-stacks of free newspapers back home alone, and spending the rest of the day on reading them.

But she always feels easy talking to Connie and Betty, even about her miseries and in tears, when they visit her or phone her. Such connection may stem from, as Madam Lee says, destined bondage. She says the two are incredible, as they always listen to her with great patience, and offer her consolation and encouragement. Their chats on various current or nostalgic issues always end up in laughter.

Betty, who works in tourism, studies psychology at spare time and one of her elder family member also had chronic diseases. She thus knows well the entwining impacts between physical and psychological health. “Our attentive listening can help Madam Lee unleash her negative emotions. In addition, we also need to empower her with positive mentality. For example, we would ask her to share her experience of growing orchids, or her cookery skills and recipes, giving her the sense her contributions. We would remind her the caring of her relatives and friends towards her and encourage her to join the interesting activities within her neighbourhood and the community …”

To the volunteers’ relief, Madam Lee herself now also figures out that the visits by her sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, in particularly the phone call from her little grandson from Britain every Tuesday, have become the driving forces of her daily life. She says she has also learnt comforting herself, “Reading newspapers every day, I come across all sorts of news from good to bad. I find that in comparison to others, I am already far more blessed.”

The three-year CDME Project launched in June 2014, our staff and nursing colleagues will visit service recipient to conduct assessment for working out individual follow-up care plan, taking into account the physical, psychological and social needs of the elderly. Such plan will then be followed up by trained volunteers. Through regular home visits and caring phone calls, they will guide the elderly along in managing their chronic diseases, and connecting them with corresponding community support network. Since then the project has trained about 240 volunteers to take care of a total of 190 elderly residents in Sham Shui Po, To Kwa Wan, Shatin and Tuen Mun. Most of the service recipients are deprived singletons or elderly couples, who lack community support and have diabetes and/or hypertension.

Prior to providing service, volunteers have to attend a 18-hour training to well prepare themselves. The training includes knowledge and skills of managing chronic diseases, health measurements for diabetes and hypertension, drug management, healthy diet, physical exercises, etc.

Initial assessment of the Project has confirmed its effectiveness in enhancing the knowledge, confidence and determination of the elderly in managing their own chronic diseases. Among the 92 service recipients assessed, 83% recorded improvements in Empowerment Score for Hypertension, while 74% improved in Empowerment Score for Diabetes. On satisfaction rating of the overall project on a 10-point scale, all in the assessment gave a score between 7 to 10, with 63% even offer the full score of 10.

We rely on your support and generous donation for the continuation of the CDME Project to benefit more deprived, singleton elderly with chronic diseases. Your donation of HK$500 or a monthly donation of HK$200 can help sustain this Project and other humanitarian services of the Red Cross.

The volunteers go into the community to promote the importance of public hygiene and community health.

Once having chronic diseases, proper management is undoubtedly important. However, as the saying goes, “prevention is more important than cure”. To maintain physical and psychological health, regardless of age, we need to equip ourselves with knowledge on preventing various diseases, household accidents and disasters; and to prepare ourselves for responding to emergencies and injuries.

Launched in 2003, our “5 Stars Health, 5 Stars Home” Community Health Education Project has been focused in the districts of Tai Po, Tuen Mun and Kwai Tsing. Through a wide array of health education initiatives staged in collaboration with various community partners, the Project aims at arousing the awareness towards personal and public hygiene, household safety and prevention of infectious diseases, for building our healthy communities. Over the past 12 years, in the three districts, the various health education activities under the Project have attracted over 582,300 participants and reached more than 934,150 households in total.

Since last year, the Project is further extended to other districts, especially those with more vulnerable populations, including Yuen Long, Wong Tai Sin and Sham Shui Po, so as to promote healthy lifestyle to more districts of greater needs.

Your support and generous donation can help us extend health education to more districts, so as to empower the public, especially the vulnerable groups, to build up healthy lifestyle.

We have a wide range of “5 Stars” health promotion activities, such as health talks, roving exhibitions, basic health checks, mass events, interactive games, etc. We also recruit and train up residents in the communities to become “Community Hygiene Ambassadors” and “Community First Aid Facilitators”, so that they can help promote health and safety within their own communities continuously. Furthermore, we recruit families as “Healthy Friends”, who will receive our regular communications on health information and health and safety activities.

Every year, we publish four issues of the printed periodical Healthy Friends News, which cover topics on health and safety for the benefit of families and the community. We also publish electronic newsletter Health Express every month, which feature current health issues of concern in an effort to deliver health and safety messages to our community partners.

To cope with evolving society needs, in recent years, our “5 Stars” health promotion focuses have been extending from household safety, first aid knowledge, prevention of infectious diseases, prevention and preparedness for disasters, to non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, etc). In the near future, more types of non-communicable diseases would be covered. We would also promote simple stretching exercises suitable for people of all ages, so as to advocate for regular exercise for maintaining healthy body.

Please donate online (one-off donation / regular monthly donation) or download donation form (one-off donation / regular monthly donation). Your donation of HK$500 or monthly donation of HK$200 will help us providing appropriate and timely services for the needy, so as to help them help themselves. These include the Home-based Chronic Diseases Management Service for the Elderly Project and the “5 Stars Health, 5 Stars Home” Community Health Education Project mentioned in this letter, as well as the various Red Cross humanitarian initiatives provided for those affected by disasters, the sick or injured, and the vulnerable groups.

Lastly, we express our sincere gratitude to your support. If you require further information on our services or usage of donation, please feel free to contact us or feedback to us at secretarygeneral@redcross.org.hk or at 2802 0016.

Best wishes, Bonnie So Secretary General