Page 17 - CUHK MEDICAL ALUMNI Newsletter Issue 1 Vol 13 2020

Humanitarian Service

When paediatrics specialist Dr. Maggie YEUNG was very young, she
spotted the photo of an African refugee in a newspaper. She made a
promise to herself there and then that she would dedicate herself to
helping the underprivileged and the needy.

She realised that by becoming a doctor she could volunteer her
much-needed medical services, particularly in war zones and
disaster-stricken areas. Over the years, she worked hard to achieve
her two burning ambitions - to become a physician and to provide
humanitarian aid to people who need it the most.
Dr. Maggie Man Chow YEUNG
楊文秋醫生 (MBChB 1993) But she knew she had to enhance her capability as a volunteer so
she decided to join the Hong Kong Red Cross in 2007. Her first
•FHKAM (Paediatrics) major mission was to help the victims of the massive earthquake that
•Specialist in Paediatrics struck Sichuan province in 2008.
•Medical Volunteer of Hong Kong Red
Cross After that, she was sent by Hong Kong Red Cross to Japan for

training in Basic Healthcare Emergency Response and then to Kenya
for a Field School Training Mission.

When Syria was in the middle of its internal strife, Maggie flew to the
Azraq refugee camp in Jordan to help the thousands of refugees,
including babies, who fled the fighting.

Take the case of Baby Rawan for example. As soon as he was
born, Dr. YEUNG noticed that he was turning blue and immediately
provided him with much-needed oxygen. Thankfully, he survived.
Incidents like these make her missions rewarding…and memorable.

She then turned her attention to Greece to continue helping the
Syrian refugees in camps there. In 2017, she went to Bangladesh
to work in a mobile clinic in camps for displaced persons from
Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

In 2013, when a super typhoon struck the Tacloban region of the
Philippines, she was there to provide medical and humanitarian aid in
its aftermath.

Dr. YEUNG is modest, caring and is not into publicity or vanity. She is
most gratified when she is fulfilling her special calling in life to provide
humanitarian and medical aid to people caught in the middle of
conflicts or natural disasters. She is, without a doubt, an inspirational
doctor - someone her peers, as well as students, can look up to…
and emulate.
Photo Courtesy: Hong Kong Red Cross