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Hong Kong patients want faster, cheaper treatments. Now they’re flocking to mainland China
- Long waiting times for public healthcare services, high drug prices in Hong Kong send residents across the border
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![Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1020x680/public/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/20/a39f2ff5-6088-4dfa-be59-5fdd88339e93_a3377280.jpg?itok=5F8LyNU4&v=1721488502)
Hong Kong retiree Donika Liu leaves her home in Tsuen Wan at 8am and starts a 90-minute train journey across the border to Shenzhen.
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At the University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Hospital in Futian, she sees a doctor and collects a month’s supply of a targeted therapy drug for her cancer.
She is done by noon, and then begins her journey home.
“I make these long, arduous trips across the border to get life-saving medication I cannot afford in Hong Kong,” 59-year-old Liu said.
Single and living alone, she quit her job in social services after she was diagnosed with lung cancer more than two years ago.
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