The hospital was declared for construction on 26 March 1870 under the "Tung Wah Hospital Incorporation Ordinance". The push for the construction of the facility began when the British Colony'sRegistrar General saw an indiscriminate mix of the dead and dying huddled together in the nearby Kwong Fook I-tsz, a small temple built at Tai Ping Shan Street.[2] The large number of deaths were in part due to the arrival of the upcoming Third Pandemic of bubonic plague from China, though it was not declared an official establishment until 1872.[3] The hospital was subsidized by the government at a price of HKD 45,000 along with HKD 15,000 in land grant. The grand opening on 14 February 1872 was considered the grandest ever witnessed in Colonial Hong Kong. A lot of cultural prejudice did exist at the time, such as Chinese citizens not trusting western medicine and other practices such as surgery. Many Chinese would rather die than be admitted into a western clinic.[4] The government subsequently enacted Ordinance No. 38 known as "1911 Expansion of Tung Wah Hospital Ordinance" in 1911 to deal with the population growth of Kowloon and the New Territories in conjunction with Kwong Wah Hospital.[5]
^Wiltshire, Trea (2003) [1987]. Old Hong Kong – Volume One Central, Hong Kong (reduced ed.). Asia books Ltd. p. 74. ISBN962-7283-59-2.
^Tsai Jung-fang (1995). Hong Kong in Chinese History: community and social unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913. Columbia University Press. ISBN0-231-07933-8.
