Dedicated paediatrician keeps Hong Kong’s infant mortality rate low
Consultant paediatrician Vincent Leung has devoted his life to improving the odds for babies
Vincent Leung has his own adaptation of Lao Zi’s famous quote from the Dao De Jing, “a life of 100 years begins with a single breath”. He has dedicated his life to improving the odds for babies, “they are the most helpless, the most needy,” he says. His efforts have contributed to the fact that Hong Kong has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
He has achieved many other things as well. At the age of 30, Leung was the youngest consultant paediatrician ever appointed at Kwong Wah Hospital. At the time, the hospital delivered the most babies in Hong Kong. Some 10,000 were born every year at the overworked and understaffed public hospital in Yau Ma Tai.
A bureaucratic restriction prevented Kwong Wah from having intern doctors to help with the heavy workload. Leung negotiated a way past this and instantly solved severe staffing problems. “I was very happy about that”, he says.
During the Sars outbreak of 2003, Leung noticed that children were spreading the illness without succumbing to symptoms themselves. He wrote a letter to the editor of , urging the chief executive to close the schools. The schools were closed the next day. “I’m not sure if it was because of my letter”, he says.
In last year, The Red Cross awarded Leung a Hong Kong Humanity award, recognising his 40-year career in paediatric care. Leung has often been a trail blazer in the field, with successes both visionary and practical.
In 2007, he led a study of 3,000 caesarean section operations. He discovered these babies to have a higher rate of respiratory problems. As many mainland Chinese were coming to Hong Kong to give birth, most opted to book caesarean deliveries due to the maximum one-week stay they were permitted. Leung advised his hospital to increase the minimum gestation for caesarean operations from 37 to 38 weeks. The change brought a significant reduction in both the rate of birth complications and respiratory illness. Most Hong Kong hospitals quickly followed suit.
