第七站/廣福義祠及東華(中)醫院

The Seventh Station/ Kwong Fook I Tsz and Tung Wah (Chinese) Hospital

廣福義祠

香港開埠初期，來港謀生的華人大都孤身一人，一旦客死異鄉，只能草草安葬而無人供奉。地區紳商遂於1851年向政府申請在太平山街土地社壇旁邊加建幾間小建築，取名「廣福義祠」，用作安奉無主孤魂的木主，同時提供免費中醫義診，慢慢招聚到一群垂危病患及流浪漢聚集。至1869年，時任署理「華民政務司」Alfred Lister及同行記者發現祠內衛生環境惡劣，多具屍首無人處理，經過香港及英國的報章大肆報導後，港督麥當勞在輿論推動下決定整治問題。

東華(中)醫院

因此，港督麥當勞撥出墳墓街(現普仁街)十二畝官地、賭餉十一萬五千元，加上華人集資，建設一所華人中醫醫院，於1872年落成並命名為「東華醫院」，即「廣東華人醫院」之意。隨著社會發展，東華醫院的規模日益壯大，成為今天的東華三院。

Kwong Fook I Tsz

During the earliest days of colonial Hong Kong, a lot of Chinese came to Hong Kong all by themselves to earn a living.  When they died, they were often buried hastily without anybody visiting their burial sites ever again.  In view of this, elites and businessmen in the area applied to the government for the construction of a few small buildings next to the shrine of the Earth God on Tai Ping Shan Street in 1851.

These small buildings were named ‘Kwong Fook I Tsz’, a place where the ancestral tablets of the wandering souls could be placed.  Since Kwong Fook I Tsz also provided traditional Chinese medical services free of charge, the sick and the homeless gradually started to come and gather here.  In 1869, the then acting Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, Alfred Lister, along with accompanying reporters, found out about the appalling hygienic conditions in Kwong Fook I Tsz – in particular, the fact that many corpses were left unattended.  The situation was widely reported by newspapers in Hong Kong and the UK.  Motivated by public opinion, Governor Macdonnell decided to remediate the problem.

Tung Wah (Chinese) Hospital

Governor Macdonnell allocated 79,200 square feet of government land on Grace Street (now Po Yan Street) and invested 115,000 Hong-Kong-dollars charges from gambling businesses into the construction of a Chinese hospital.  Eventually, together with funds raised among the Chinese public, the hospital was erected in 1872under the name of ‘Tung Wah Hospital’, which stood for ‘Kwangtung Chinese Hospital’.  As society developed, the scale of Tung Wah Hospital increased day by day, evolving to become today’s Tung Wah Group of Hospitals.

地址/ 上環太平山街40號、普仁街12號

 Address/ 40 Tai Ping Shan Street, 12 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan

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