Hong Kong is in the middle of a Covid surge, and some of its most marginalised residents— domestic helpers—are suffering from the fallout.
One maid, a 28-year-old Filipina identified as only ‘Josie’ in a Feb 28 article in the South China Morning Post, said she was asked by her employer to isolate herself in the car while waiting for the results of a Covid-19 test after she had experienced having chills and fever, possible Covid symptoms.
The temperature is still low in Hong Kong at present, which meant that in addition to feeling ill, Josie had to deal with temperatures as low as 8 degrees.
She was found in the car of her employer, where she had stayed for 30 hours, by volunteers from a group that extends assistance to foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong.
She also said it got so cold she forgot how hungry she had gotten.
It took a lot of convincing to get Josie to agree to move to a shelter, as SCMP reports she was afraid her employer would cut her contract short.
“A domestic worker is required to have suitable and safe accommodation and definitely, a car does not fall into that category, particularly when she was sick. It was neither suitable nor safe,” the article quotes Manisha Wijesinghe, the executive director of HELP for Domestic Workers, a Non-Governmental Organization, as saying.
Josie, a first-time helper and new arrival in the city, said she ended up wetting herself as she did not know where she could use the bathroom.
Still feverish while she self-isolated in the car, she was given a blanket and hot water by the NGO, and finally said yes to moving to a shelter after the Philippine consulate spoke to her employers.
And while she felt better after she got some rest and meals at the shelter in Kowloon, she continued to test positive for Covid.
On Sunday (Feb 27) Hong Kong recorded a new daily high of 26,026 infections and 83 deaths.
On Feb 23, The Guardian reported that some maids in Hong Kong ended up homeless after being terminated by their employers upon receiving a positive Covid-19 diagnosis.
The problem is the same one that Josie faced—there is no room for them to isolate themselves in their employers’ homes.
The Guardian recounted the experience of ‘Maria,’ also a Filipina, who was given three choices when she got Covid—pay for a hotel stay, go to a hospital and say she felt “very sick,” or end her employment contract.
Maria chose the second option but ended up one whole day in the hospital.
“I went to hospital in the morning but there were so many patients I finished at 6 o’clock in the evening. My employer told me I can’t come back to their house, because I was dangerous and I was afraid that I would transfer the virus,” she told The Guardian.
Again, HELP For Domestic Workers, stepped in to help her. The NGO said there are over 100 maids who are now homeless, which include at least a dozen who were terminated or told not to come back to their employer’s residence.
Ms Wijesinghe told The Guardian that she doesn’t believe the employers are acting out of malice but of fear.
“We understand that it is a scary time and everyone is worried for their own safety, for their children and family’s safety, but the thing is the domestic worker is also part of the family. They are the ones that take care of you on a day to day basis,” she said.
Like China, the city had adopted a Covid-zero strategy in battling the pandemic, which had been largely successful until the highly contagious Omicron variant struck, leading to rising cases and deaths beginning from the end of January.
Much has been reported on the surge in Covid cases in Hong Kong recently, especially about the city’s overwhelmed healthcare system. Reports have shown patients overflowing into the outdoor areas of hospital grounds in order to receive treatment.
But the surge has also affected a number of the city’s domestic helpers. There are 390,000 of them living in Hong Kong, most of whom come from the Philippines and Indonesia. /TISG