Lip Kwong-wing, a senior police constable with a heart of gold and a regular blood donor for 20 years, didn't hesitate a second when called upon to make a much more dramatic donation to help save the life of a little boy suffering from leukaemia . . . | |
 SPC Lip. A good guy right down to the marrow |
IN mid-1998, SPC Lip, who is attached to
Transport, Mongkok Police Station, responded to the widely publicised Save Baby Fan Chai
Campaign organised by the Hong Kong Marrow Match Foundation. Although his bone
marrow wasn't a match for Baby Fan Chai, the Foundation came back to him half-a-year
later with the news that he would be a suitable donor for another young child desperately
in need of a bone marrow transplant to stay alive.
"The fact that the patient was an innocent little boy prompted me into making an immediate decision," said SPC Lip, the father of two young sons. At first his wife had reservations about her husband's decision, but was won over by his enthusiasm and generosity. |
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So, in early January of this year, following a stringent medical examination and check-up, Mr Lip underwent an hour-long operation at Queen Mary Hospital. While under general anaesthesia, two small holes were drilled into both sides of his pelvis out of which a tiny portion of bone marrow was extracted to be transplanted into the recipient patient. Said Mr Lip: "I did feel tired and the lower part of my body ached for a few days after the operation. But this was soon gone after which I had an unusually good appetite." He was granted a week-long leave and continued to receive medication for one month to help replenish his lost marrow and blood. However, the energetic donor grew bored with resting in bed and went to visit his colleagues at the police station well before his sick leave was over. "My regular exercise and workouts must have made me fitter than I thought," laughed SPC Lip. "I can't tell you how glad I was to hear that the boy was recovering after the marrow transplant. When you help save a life, you really feel good about yourself," he said adding that what he did also helped him adopt a more positive attitude towards life. "Seeing those who are unfortunate enough to be critically ill instilled in me an attitude never to take anything such as good health for granted." Lip Kwong-wing, who was once posted to a traffic unit, is no stranger to witnessing the results car crashes on the roads of Hong Kong. "Donating blood is one way to help casualties of traffic accidents," he said. "Which is what a lot of police officers do on a regular basis. In many ways donating bone marrow is not much different from giving blood. If what I've done encourages police officers to go that extra step to donate their bone marrow and in turn offer hope and life to those in need, then I'm doubly happy." | |
¡Ð a safe and simple procedure | |
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"THE amount of bone marrow we take from
a donor is only four to five per cent of the total amount of the body's marrow," said professor
Raymond Liang of the Haematology/Oncology Division of the University of Hong Kong's
Department of Medicine. "This tiny extraction does not undermine a donor's health in any
way.
"In fact," continued professor Liang, who was responsible for making arrangements for Lip Kwong-wing's donation, "among the large number of bone marrow donor operations performed in Hong Kong, there have been no incidences of any donor having serious side effects." |  Professor Liang: "This tiny extraction does not undermine a donor's health in any way" |
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Professor Liang explained that like giving blood, the body quickly and automatically replenishes (in about two to three weeks) any marrow that is lost following a donation and donors can expect a short-lived post operation lethargy, with everything returning to normal in a few days. The expert in bone marrow transplantation assures would-be donors that the operation is carried out under the most stringent procedures. "Donors undergo a thorough medical examination before the operation to clear up any doubt about their physical fitness. They are also closely monitored after the operation," said professor Liang. "Of course, we are eager to save our patients ¡Ð but the safety of donors is equally high on our priority list." Bone marrow transplantation is the only real cure for blood diseases like leukaemia, aplastic anaemia and lymphoma in which case sufferers' bone marrow is so dysfunctional their only chance of survival is to receive healthy marrow from a matching donor. "About 80 per cent of the recipients of transplants have some form of leukaemia for which chemotherapy would not be a good choice given the adverse side effects. What they need is a bone marrow transplant to help them produce their own blood," said professor Liang, adding that marrow from siblings is the best choice for transplantation because it frequently matches the recipient's ¡Ð and results in minimum rejection. "However, given the increasingly smaller size of families in Hong Kong nowadays, we cannot rely on bone marrow donations from siblings and consequently have targeted donors who are not related to the patients,"Ó he said. Even so, according to the professor, the probability of donated marrow matching that of the recipient is as tiny as one in five thousand. And with up to 300 new cases of leukaemia diagnosed in Hong Kong every year (half of those requiring bone marrow transplants), tragically many patients die while waiting for a marrow donor match. Established in 1991, the Hong Kong Marrow Match Foundation is a non-profit organisation whose aim is to encourage local residents to register as potential donors. There are now 30,000 registered potential donors on the Foundation's list ¡Ð many of them from the ranks of the disciplined services. "However," said professor Liang, "we cannot afford to be complacent because every new donor can make a difference between life and death for a patient on the waiting list." For more information on bone marrow donation, please call the Hong Kong Marrow Match Foundation at 2819-0766. | |
 SSP Eric Crowter with winners of the road safety drawing competition
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TO enhance the road safety awareness of
primary and secondary school students across Hong Kong the Road Safety Unit of Traffic
Headquarters organised a territory-wide drawing competition that inspired participants from
73 primary and 49 secondary schools to offer up more than 300 drawings.
Following the award presentation ceremony for the three winning drawings (and ten runners-up), which was officiated by ACP Support, M B Dowie, at the PSRC on 16 January, the gathering moved out to the streets of Kowloon where many of the best drawings were reproduced on the outer walls of Mongkok Police Station as a reminder to members of the public to abide by traffic regulations. While students, teachers and parents duplicated their masterpieces on the unique canvas, members of the Hong Kong Road Safety Patrol conducted an on-street road safety campaign by distributing leaflets to passers-by. The event was jointly sponsored by Esso Hong Kong Ltd, Camelpaint Chemicals Co Ltd, Addison Wasley Longman China Ltd, and Nestle Hong Kong Ltd. |
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CHAIRMAN of the working committee of this
highly successful road safety drawing competition, is SSP Eric Crowter of TBHQs, who will
retire in May following 36 years of service in the Force.
Promoted to CIP in 1973 and SP in 1982 after completing an MA degree in Business Administration at University of Aston in Birmingham, Mr Crowter has been the SDI for all the land Regions and has excelled in a number of posts including SSP Planning and Research, and SSP Higher Training. Most of his projects, such as the manpower saving amalgamation of NPU duties with divisional police stations, and the arming of women officers are well known. As are Mr Crowter's many Force "innovations" such as his proposal to change women officers' uniforms from skirts to trousers, and to include breakfast workshops with LegCo members during Senior Command Course training. | |
