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Hong Kong Homeless Primary Healthcare Project Closing
An MSF team member explains the importance of eating fresh food to maintain good health to a man experiencing homelessness at an MSF mobile clinic. Hong Kong, August 2024.
© MSF

MSF finished activities in Hong Kong in December 2024.

MSF teams returned to Hong Kong in August 2023 to provide free basic healthcare to people experiencing homelessness.

Over 16 months, we partnered with local non-governmental organisations in the Yau Tsim Mong and Shum Shui Po districts to increase the health literacy of people experiencing homelessness and connect them to health services. The project concluded in December 2024.

Before this most recent project, MSF teams had responded to outbreaks of coronaviruses in Hong Kong, notably SARS in 2003 and COVID-19 in 2020. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MSF teams provided face-to-face and virtual health promotion sessions with vulnerable people less likely to be able to access information, such as refugees, and those on the front line, such as street cleaners.

We also created a website to help people manage their stress and worry, which included tips and tools on how to cope.

MSF medical teams and outreach workers had also assisted people experiencing homelessness, by providing free medical consultations, and arranging temporary shelter and distributing food and water where needed.

Our activities in 2024 in Hong Kong SAR

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2024.

MSF in Hong Kong SAR in 2024 Between August 2023 and December 2024, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) ran a basic healthcare project for people experiencing homelessness in two districts of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).
Hong Kong IAR map 2024
Country map for the IAR 2024.
© MSF

MSF provided free basic health screening in Yau Tsim Mong and Sham Shui Po districts during this period and identified two major challenges regarding access to healthcare for people experiencing homelessness. The services available were not designed with their daily reality in mind, and people in this situation understandably tended to prioritise other critical concerns before health.  

MSF therefore initiated partnerships with local NGOs to deliver patient-centred care. Our teams provided basic health screening, health promotion sessions, and psychosocial support. We also worked on capacity building with local partners to ensure continuity of care for people in the programme after December 2024.  

 

in 2024