31-05-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
From Sichuan quake to Gaza war: Hong Kong nurse wins top medal for life-saving work
In a makeshift hospital ward in Gaza, reserved for the most severely wounded and dying patients, Hong Kong nurse Walter Leung Wai-yin, 66, walked up to a woman whose face was partially torn in an explosion.
The woman was classified as a 'blue case', which indicates catastrophic injuries that are considered beyond saving. In such cases, medical professionals shift to end-of-life care, focusing on reducing pain with the heaviest dosage of morphine.
'Her skull was gone and her brain was visible. Blood was all over her hair and face. She was still screaming and breathing,' he said.
'So I brought my British nurse partner and wiped the blood off her body. You could still smell the gunpowder… We also bandaged her head so that she would look better when her family came to see her.'
Walter Leung cares for a patient in Pakistan in 2020. Photo: Walter Leung
Leung's 15 years of remarkable volunteer work with the Red Cross in disastrous situations have earned him a Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest international distinction for nurses.
