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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-04-28 17:30
Last update date: 2021-04-28 17:30
On Tuesday (27th), the coroner's court was held in the case of a 14-year-old boy who fell from a private disabled home, known as the Hong Kong version of the "silent cry", which once again aroused the community's attention to the disabled residents.
The 14-year-old boy with autism and moderate intellectual disability fell to his death in 2016 from the privately-run disability home of Kangqiao’s home. As the media reports on the case one after another, it not only exposed the boy’s life or death Being abused by the staff of the institution, it was even revealed that there were as many as six bizarre deaths of residents in this institution in the past eight months.
The incident caused a sensation at the time and was hailed as the Hong Kong version of "silent shouts."
In the movie "Silent Scream", disadvantaged groups are left alone because they are unable to speak for themselves.
This is precisely the plight of disabled residents in Hong Kong, who find it difficult to seek help from outside and obtain intervention and support.
For example, in addition to the aforementioned six bizarre death cases that are still under investigation, the former dean of Cambridge House has been prosecuted twice for allegedly indecent assault on female residents with intellectual disabilities.
However, due to the limitation of the person's mental and intellectual level, the former dean was not convicted in the end.
For such tragedies, talk intervention can only serve as a "smearing leak" when it is too late. For people with disabilities who have difficulty seeking help on their own initiative, stronger supervision can ensure that such groups are not fundamentally caught in a predicament.
The Kangqiao Home has insufficient nursing staff, and the staff disclosed that the home does not comply with the requirement of 60 residents for at least one health worker.
(Photo/Photo by reporter from Hong Kong 01)
Institutional issues need institutional solutions
It is a pity that the supervision of the Social Welfare Department is so loose and weak that it is impossible to prevent abuse and neglect.
Take Kangqiao’s home where six residents were found dead within eight months as an example. Its manpower ratio does not meet the requirements of the Code of Practice for Residential Homes for People with Disabilities, that is, every 60 residents must have at least one protector or nurse Requirements.
But every time they encounter an inspection by the Social Welfare Department, they can be fooled by temporarily pulling people from other institutions to "top stalls."
Some employees broke the news and even "ghost employees" who had never shown up appeared on the table.
In this way, Cambridge House can escape the inspection by the Social Welfare Department, which shows how trivial the inspection is.
Not only that, although Cambridge House broke the scandal of the then dean's sexual assault on residents in 2014, in October of the following year, the SWD continued to issue the Kangqiao wholesale exemption certificate on the grounds that the dean had been dismissed from the home.
After Cambridge was uncovered for eight months and six deaths, the Social Welfare Department also dragged on for two months before it was forced to nail Cambridge under public pressure.
However, Cambridge is not a special case. It represents the general attitude of the Social Welfare Department towards homes for the disabled.
The Regulations on Homes for People with Disabilities came into effect in 2011, but until 2019, about half of the homes still operate under the certificate of exemption commonly known as “temporary license”.
Why is the SWD so "polite"?
One of the more fundamental obstacles is that once the warnings and signs for the homes are strictly enforced, the SWD will not be able to arrange a large number of residents.
As of the middle of last year, the government's quarters for the moderately and severely mentally handicapped people had waited for more than 2,000 people. The waiting time was 16 years and 19 years. The demand has already exceeded demand. How can we accommodate the additional demand after strict implementation of the regulatory license?
In the face of increasing numbers of residential homes for the disabled in the past decade, the government has repeatedly evaded the shortage of resources.
Not to mention helping people with disabilities and their caregivers solve their urgent needs. The government should create resources to solve the problem. What's more, the fact is that some district councillors have asked the government about more than 200 abandoned school buildings in Hong Kong to see if they can apply for conversion to residential institutions. But all failed.
Under such circumstances, the lack of resources in government institutions for the disabled has made residents become financial tools for private institutions, and even tragedies have repeatedly occurred.
Now that the 14-year-old boy's death court is held, it may be able to restore the truth about this incident. However, what responsibility should the government that caused the plight of the disabled?
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