Tung Wah Hospital

Tung Wah Hospital is a charitable hospital in Hong Kong under the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. Located above Possession Point at 12 Po Yan Street in Sheung Wan, it is the first hospital established in Colonial Hong Kong for the general public in the 1870s.

Tung Wah Hospital
Hospital Authority and Tung Wah Group of Hospitals
Tung Wah Hospital
Geography
Location	12 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong
Coordinates	22°17′07″N 114°08′48″E
Organisation
Care system	Hospital Authority
Funding	Charitable
Type	Teaching, Community
Affiliated university	Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong
Network	Hong Kong West Cluster
Services
Emergency department	No Accident and Emergency at Queen Mary Hospital
Beds	633
History
Opened	26 March 1870; 154 years ago (1870-03-26)
Links
Website	www.ha.org.hk/twh/
Lists	Hospitals in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Graded Building – Grade I
Designated	18 December 2009; 15 years ago (2009-12-18)[1]
Reference no.	183

Tung Wah Hospital
Traditional Chinese	東華醫院
Simplified Chinese	东华医院
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Dōnghuá Yīyuàn Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Dūng wàh yī yún Jyutping Dung1 waa4 ji1 jyun6*2

History

The hospital was declared for construction on 26 March 1870 under the "Tung Wah Hospital Incorporation Ordinance". The push for the facility's construction began when the British colony's Registrar General saw an indiscriminate mix of the dead and dying huddled together in the nearby Kwong Fook I-tsz [zh], a small temple built at Tai Ping Shan Street.^[2] The large number of deaths were in part due to the arrival of the upcoming Third Pandemic of bubonic plague from China, though it^{[clarification needed]} was not declared an official establishment until 1872.^[3]

The hospital was subsidized by the government at a price of HK$45,000 along with HK$15,000 in land grant. The grand opening on 14 February 1872 was considered the grandest ever witnessed in Colonial Hong Kong. A lot of cultural prejudice existed at the time, with Chinese citizens not trusting western medicine and other practices such as surgery. Many of them would rather die than be admitted into a western clinic.^[4]

In 1911, the government enacted Ordinance No. 38, known as the "1911 Expansion of Tung Wah Hospital Ordinance", to help deal with the population growth of Kowloon and the New Territories along with Kwong Wah Hospital.^[5]

Background

With 633 beds, including 494 for in-patients, 93 for day patients and 46 rehabilitation day places, it is the second largest general hospital in Hong Kong West Cluster. The Main Block of Tung Wah Hospital is graded as Grade I historic building.^[1] It is affiliated with the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Seaman's Hospital

References

1. "List of the 1,444 Historic Buildings in Building Assessment" (PDF). Antiquities Advisory Board. Hong Kong. 27 December 2013.
2. History of Tung Wah Group of Hospitals
3. Wiltshire, Trea (2003) [1987]. Old Hong Kong – Volume One Central, Hong Kong (reduced ed.). Asia books Ltd. p. 74. ISBN 962-7283-59-2.
4. Tsai Jung-fang (1995). Hong Kong in Chinese History: community and social unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-07933-8.
5. "Hospital History". Retrieved 17 February 2007.

External links

• Tung Wah Hospital