Dr. John Ngan was very honored to be awarded the 2019 Hong Kong Humanity Award by the Hong Kong Red Cross. Collaborating with a group of caring doctors and musicians, combining music and medicine to cure the hearts of the underprivileged. Dr. Ngan leads the team to perform operations on children who suffer from birth defects in Mainland China, and arranges orphans to be adopted, which brings them hope.
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The Awardee of 2019 Hong Kong Humanity Award – Dr John Ngan Hin-kay
Cure the heart and fill it with hope using music
The duty of a doctor is to cure a patient physically; but it means much more to Dr John Ngan Hin-kay, who has been passionate about music since childhood and hopes to combine music and medicine to cure the patient’s heart. He has been collaborating with a group of caring doctors and musicians for over 20 years in prisons, psychiatric hospitals and hospice centres to care for prisoners, mentally-ill patients, mentally-handicapped persons, and the terminal patients through music.
Remember why you started and serve the forgotten
Dr Ngan noticed that there are tens of thousands of new cases each year in the Mainland China involving children with multiple complications caused by various illnesses and Spina Bifida. However, quite a number of the patients’ families and even medical staff do not have enough knowledge of Spina Bifida, which caused them stop saving children with such deadly birth defect, and some children even became orphans because of that.
The China Orphan Outreach was initiated by Dr Ngan in 2003 with an aim to raise public awareness of the underprivileged group that has been neglected. Not only did he self-finance and led the team to perform operation on children suffering from the illness, he also organized fundraising concerts to assist orphans with such birth defect, and brought hope to the forgotten.
Curing orphans from the disease would not change their fate, but Dr Ngan believes that the true meaning of curing children who suffer from the disease is to facilitate the chance of adoption, so that the children could leave the present situation behind and start a new life. So far, Dr Ngan and his team have cured over 500 children, and over 200 of the rehabilitated children were adopted.
Not asking for anything in return, working diligently, and maximizing the children’s welfare are the mottos of Dr Ngan and his volunteer team – “Act with empathy, when you know someone is in need, that would be the time to help them.”