Time to put children’s needs front and centre

The pressing needs of our children as we do battle with Covid-19, especially toddlers and those in their early childhood, drove me to write in, while appreciating that the government and medical professionals and facilities have been facing extraordinary challenges.

Child advocates have rightly called attention to the need to ensure the safety and well-being of children, supported by evidence that the child and their parent or carer must be taken as a unit through their assessment, treatment and rehabilitation.

Separating a Covid-positive child and their carer is cruel, for toddlers in particular, and seriously harms the child’s treatment and long-term development. It is unwise and not cost effective.

I urge the government to swiftly put in place every possible means to ensure infected children are accompanied by responsible parents or carers, and attended to in sites that are, as far as possible, safe and child friendly.

This will demonstrate to Hongkongers and the world that the city is doing its best, even under tremendous stress, to seriously ensure the best interests of and optimal care for our children, the future of Hong Kong.

To quote United Nations agency Unicef: “The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.”

Priscilla Lui Tsang Sun-kai, member of the Commission on Children