MSF started working in Hong Kong in 1988 during the height of an influx of Vietnamese boat people. For 10 years, we provided medical services in refugee camps in Sham Shui Po, Tuen Mun and Pillar Point, and detention camps in Whitehead, High Island, Chi Ma Wan and many other sites, in conjunction with UNHCR, the Hong Kong Government and other NGOs. We ran outpatient clinics with medical referral services, offered antenatal care and extended programmes of immunisation, and launched psychological support programmes. We gave health education, which focused on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and conducted a harm reduction needle exchange programme for heroin addicts. Opposing the forced repatriation of the Vietnamese boat people, MSF asked to be present during such operations and acted, from 1994 onwards, as an independent monitor to report any human rights abuses. We stayed in the camps until most of the Vietnamese boat people were properly resettled or repatriated, in early 1998.

During the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003, MSF set up an information, education and communication programme at the peak of the epidemic and mobilised more than 100 medical and nursing students and local medical doctors to bring SARS prevention messages to public housing estates and ethnic minority communities.

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak in the city, an MSF emergency team had been mobilised to respond to the outbreak here since late January 2020. Our team reached out to vulnerable groups in the society and conducted a series of health education and mental health workshops. During the third wave of the pandemic, we worked with Impact HK, a local NGO to provide medical consultations for vulnerable individuals and arrange temporary shelter for some of them. Later in the year the homeless project was handed over to ImpactHK and the team refocused its attention towards mental health awareness and psychosocial support. We then delivered Community Care Training Programme to the community leaders of foreign domestic helpers which aims to empower them to better support their peers and understand their own boundaries. During the fifth wave of the outbreak in 2022, the team collaborated with local NGOs to offer a people-centred vaccination programme, which included free medical consultations and inoculation for vulnerable groups such as homeless, elderly and low-income populations. For residential care homes for the elderly and for persons with disabilities, multi-disciplinary assessments which covered ventilation system, infection prevention and control, and mental health and emotional well-being of the staff and residents were conducted in 16 premises. Assessment reports with recommendations were produced and shared with the care homes to support them in preparing for potential outbreaks in the future.