The ranking of Hong Kong in the Quality of Death Index drastically leaped from the 22^nd among 80 places around the world in 2015¹ to the 9^th among 81 in 2021². The work of the “Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project” (JCECC) might be one of the major drivers of this rise. Initiated and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust in 2016, the JCECC Project has provided end-of-life (EoL) care service to patients with terminal illness at home and residential care homes for the elderly, offered trainings to health and social care professionals, volunteers and carers, and organised public education activities to enhance public awareness on end-of-life care in the past 6 years.

To step up the efforts and strengthen the EoL care services in the community with growing demand, the Trust has made further donation to launch a four-year Phase Three of JCECC in 2022, bringing the total funding to the project to around HK$520 million. Project partners include two universities and six NGOs.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, JCECC has continued to provide holistic care to home-dwelling patients with terminal illness and their family members, and integrated technological support during the social distancing period. The Project team analysed the needs and reactions of the service users in six distinct periods of the pandemic. Aside from the research results, two family caregivers who received JCECC services during the pandemic will be invited to share their EoL care experiences.

Media representatives are invited to join the Press Conference with details as follows:
Date:                July 8, 2022 (Friday)
Time:               12:00nn (media registration starts at 11:30am)
Venue:             Exhibition Hall, Middle Zone, Jao Tsung-I Academy, 800 Castle Peak Road, Mei Foo, Kowloon (Map)
Speakers:       
Mr. Leong Cheung, Executive Director, Charities and Community, The Hong Kong Jockey Club
Professor Amy Chow, Project Director and Head of Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Faculty of Social Sciences, HKU 
Case Sharing: Family members of JCECC service recipients

For media enquiries, please contact
Mr. Alan Tang, Faculty of Social Sciences, HKU (Tel: 3917 1260 / 6023 6711; Email: alantsl@hku.hk)

¹ Economist Intelligence Unit (2015). The 2015 Quality of Death Index: Ranking palliative care across the world. Retrieved from: http://www.lienfoundation.org/sites/default/files/2015%20Quality%20of%20Death%20Report.pdf

² Finkelstein, E. A., Bhadelia, A., Goh, C., Baid, D., Singh, R., Bhatnagar, S. & Connor, S. R. (2022). Cross Country Comparison of Expert Assessments of the Quality of Death and Dying. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 63(4), e419-e429. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2021.12.015