Ensuring a constancy amid uncertainties

Over 57,000 children in Hong Kong with special education needs are going through tough challenges trying to adapt to the environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Li Bingcun reports.

While much of the world remains locked down amid the pandemic with stores shut and schools closed, life carries on, pretty much like nothing has changed, at more than 20 schools in Hong Kong. More than 300 of the city's about 5,7000 special needs students continue their lives at live-in schools, much as before COVID-19 came to command the world's headlines. What has changed, through all this, is that the teachers and caregivers all wear masks.

Principal Fong Sheung-wan of Hong Chi Pinehill No 2 School admitted that, for staff members, it's a high stress situation but it would be much worse for special needs children, if the security of constancy were taken away from them.

"We know clearly we can't give in to the stress. The students need our help." Fong said.

The students still sleep in their dormitories, attend classes and play with their friends during the day. Life goes on, while the rest of Hong Kong's schools, from kindergarten to secondary school, even some special schools remain closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet those special schools with residential service have remained open for needy children. Fong's school is one of them.

The city has 60 government-aided schools for children with special education needs (SEN). Most of the students have physical or intellectual impairment.

Fong's school houses 60 students with severe intellectual disabilities. Since the coronavirus emerged in the city in late January, 30 of them have been brought home and the others retained. Most of those who stayed have particular needs for nursing. Some are unable to speak and some cannot walk in a normal way. They need help with almost everything — dining, showering, using the toilet, even sleeping.

Many have complex medical issues. Some have to be fed through tubes. Many already have weakened natural immunity owing to chronic and unstable health conditions.

SEN students are quite vulnerable, especially to large-scale pandemics, Fong said. That helps explain why work at the school has to carry on in the face of every crisis, from typhoons to SARS in 2003. Compared with previous challenges, this time seems to be particular arduous, considering its lengthy duration.

The risk of infection is high on the campus. Dozens of students live together around the clock in a relatively confined space. They have close contact with staff members who come to help them every day.

The school requires staff members to wear face masks all the time while they are working, and to change the masks frequently. The places where students go to are disinfected each day.