In Your Eyes, We're All Second-Class

On this night, I dragged my weary body back to the hotel after a shift at the hospital. When I entered the hotel lobby, I did not say a single word to the hotel staff. I rushed into the elevator and then to my room. As a frontline health care professional in the dirty team, I had no choice but to stay in the hotel. If I had a choice, I would like to go home and have a home-cooked meal instead of satiating my hunger with takeaway from a fast food restaurant every day. Turning on the TV in the hotel room, I saw seven members of the early response health care team from mainland China coming to Hong Kong, also staying in the hotel but being treated like VIPs. It turns out our health care professionals, who have been fighting for some time in the isolation wards, are inferior by comparison.

This Chinese team arrived in Hong Kong last Sunday with flowers and gift baskets awaiting them. They also received an enthusiastic welcome from cabinet members Erick Tsang Kwok-wai (Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs), Sophia Chan Siu-chee (Secretary for Food and Health) and a group of pro-establishment legislators. At that moment, the seven of them were like the honorary guests. At the same time, there are many frontline health care professionals who have been fighting for months now, scattered in different hotels across the city Hong Kong. It is a pity that this group of Hong Kong medics are not given the same VIP treatment. 

Before the outbreak of the Wuhan pneumonia pandemic, Secretary Chan advised us to "persevere with our own righteousness". At the beginning of the year, we knew that Hong Kong would fall into chaos if we did not close the border. In the end, many of our colleagues chose to go on strike to save the lives of over 7 million people in Hong Kong. Of course we didn't get the flower baskets, but instead the government settled the score on us. We did get a mere $500 a day accommodation subsidy from the Hospital Authority. Some of our colleagues tried to stay at certain hotels but they were rudely evicted. We were never given a VIP reception like these seven members of the mainland team, and a police vehicle was even parked outside the hotel for security purposes. Some of our colleagues were forced to sign a voluntary withdrawal document for our hotel rooms. Moreover, once some hotel groups became aware of the subsidy amount of $500 and knowing that some other hotel groups had already refused to accommodate  health care workers, they immediately raised their rates. Our choices were, therefore, limited. In addition, the subsidy is taxable, so we end up with just over $400 to spend.

We are all medical workers serving Hong Kong citizens. But the government treated the mainland team as its guests of honour with the highest level of hospitality. As for other frontline health care professionals who have been serving the people of Hong Kong in hospitals for the past six months, all they got in return was retribution from the Hospital Authority, the indifferent attitude of Sophia Chan and discrimination from private businesses. Perhaps in their eyes, we are all second-class health care professionals and only the early response team from mainland China are the elites.

[Written by dirty team doctor currently working in a public hospital]

Source: Citizen News Hong Kong, 04 August 2020 (https://bit.ly/2F7Bz29)