Where we work Asia Pacific How St John Hong Kong is fighting the Covid Pandemic Many St John organisation continue to support their health systems in the fight against Covid-19. This is how St John Hong Kong is contributing to the national efforts. St John Hong Kong is committed to provide quality, professional and voluntary first aid and ambulance services to the general public. As the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic remains severe, St John Hong Kong has given full support to the urgent appeal from the Government to deploy extra manpower and resources to provide all possible assistance to the local community, while still providing routine services. Formation of St John Outreach Vaccination Team In view of the surge of the 5th wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong, there was an alarming increase in the death rate among the elderly in residential care homes who had not been vaccinated. In order to suppress the spread of infected cases within the elderly centres and to reduce the source of infection, St John has mobilized over 250 personnel including doctors, nurses, dentists, First Aid lecturers, officers and members for setting up a St John vaccination team within one week. The team aims at providing outreach vaccination service to those elderly or handicapped residents at residential care homes for taking at least the first dose of the Covid vaccination. The team also visited infection-prone centres to assess and vaccinate the residents, such as 19 residential care homes within one week with 346 doses of vaccines given. As follow-up, St John has just started the second round of booster Covid vaccination. Transfer of Patients to/from Queen Elizabeth Hospital As the Government announced the Queen Elizabeth Hospital be converted into a designated hospital to look after Covid patients, those non-Covid patients had to be transferred to other hospitals within a very short period of time. At the request of the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority, St John helped to transfer over 80 patients to/from the hospital. Provision of Emergency Ambulance Service During the pandemic, the demand from the public for emergency ambulance service remains high. St John has assisted the Fire Services Department to handle over 310 emergency ambulance cases since January 2022. Provision of First Aid Service at Mobile Cabin Hospitals St John has deployed over 200 personnel to provide first aid standby services at 6 Mobile Cabin Hospitals during their construction period, to ensure there was a safe and secure environment for those construction workers since 27 February 2022. As the epidemic situation of Hong Kong remains rife, St John will continue to support the Government to provide assistance in order to protect public health and to stay vigilant to combat the ongoing epidemic together. Read more about St John Hong Kong here.