Disabled in HK face ‘impossible’ task in hunt for face masks

HONG KONG: The city’s disabled residents and their carers say they feel increasingly trapped in their apartments and abandoned by authorities as the coronavirus-hit city is engulfed with panicbuying and face mask shortages.

For the last fortnight, queues have sprung up across the densely-packed business hub as Hong Kong residents jostle for the latest delivery of face masks, toilet rolls and cleaning products.

It is a free-for-all that Steven Yan dreads. Diagnosed with muscular atrophy 14 years ago, Yan uses a wheelchair to get around.

He has tried to find face masks near his apartment but has only succeeded once in the last month, queuing for six hours to get his hands on five free masks.

“It exhausted me,” Yan told AFP.

“I dared not move, fearing that I might lose my spot.”

With just 40 masks at home to share among him, his wife and teenage son, Yan has started cutting back on going out in public, including to his regular medical check-ups.

Public hospitals have stopped supplying masks to visiting patients to save vital equipment for staff in a city where more than 60 people have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Of the nearly 600,000 people in the city with disabilities, a third live below the poverty line according to government data. Some 200,000 people also act as carers. Lam Chun, 64, looks after her 19-yearold nephew full time.

He has Pradar-Willis syndrome, a genetic disorder that makes the person feel constantly hungry and often leads to diabetes and obesity.

When she goes out to get groceries, she relies on a makeshift cloth mask to cover her face, even though it offers limited protection.

Both Yan and Lam said they had received little help from local authorities in securing masks.

The Social Welfare Department did not respond to requests for comment on what measures it was taking to ensure disabled and other vulnerable residents received masks.

Responsibility has largely fallen on volunteers and the charity sector.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam recently said 1.6 million masks would be given to local charities to hand out to vulnerable people.

And Joshua Wong, a pro-democracy activist, said his party had secured 1.2 million masks from Honduras and would distribute them through their network of local councillors.

There have been growing calls in some sectors for the government to implement price caps or to ration face masks in a bid to curb shortages and spiralling prices.

After a brief bout of panic buying in nearby Taiwan, authorities introduced new rules limiting each person to buying just two masks a week through a system connected to their national health card.

But in Hong Kong authorities have so far resisted market intervention. – AFP