Precious moments captured at Tsan Yuk Hospital

When experiencing difficulty in delivery or postpartum bleeding at maternity homes in the private sector, the maternity homes could call Tsan Yuk Hospital (TYH) for assistance at any time. Flying Squad team, comprising doctors, housemen and medical students, would offer help immediately. They would arrive at the scene with two ‘delivery boxes’. One contained sanitised basic equipment for delivery while the other consisted of ordinary items such as clothing. For serious cases, they would bring the mother and the baby back to the hospital for medical treatment.

width="100%"> In the old days, there were two canteens in the hospital, one for doctors and one for nurses. The doctors’ canteen was run by an outsourced company and was once run by a couple called Mr and Mrs Tung. Meanwhile, the nurses’ canteen was run by the hospital’s kitchen. The kitchen is now a storage room, outside which a sign saying of ‘Kitchen Area, Staff Only’ still hangs there.

In the 60s, a baby with a head three times bigger than a normal baby with many eyes on it and sounds like a beastly scream was said to have been born at a hospital in the western district. In response to the rumour, former midwife Fong Jick-har says: “I haven’t seen the ‘big head baby’ as the rumour says, but in TYH, the ‘big head baby’ may refer to the infants who suffered from hydrocephalus. As a midwife, my most unforgettable experience was the delivery of a baby with congenital cataracts, whose eyes were completely white. There was also a test cube baby with only one finger on each hand. I also recalled taking a 28-week premature baby in my care, and it was rewarding to witness the baby growing from weighing merely one pound at the time of birth to almost five pounds when the baby was discharged.”

Hong Kong’s first prenatal diagnostic laboratory and prenatal diagnostic service was set up in TYH in 1982. Five years later, it was refurbished to turn wards into a special baby care unit and operating theatres. In 1994, the first maternity day care centre was also set up in the hospital, providing follow-up care for discharged mothers and newborns.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, every year after the medical students had completed their placement, they would have a table-tennis match with the hospital’s medics and staff at the ground floor lecture hall. Believe it or not, the staff team usually won. Why would the table-tennis matches be held in the hospital? It was because the table-tennis table was easy to pack. When emergency cases were announced through the central broadcasting system, the medics would immediately ‘leave the match to save a life’.