Healthcare volunteers’ significant impact on primary care: Experiences and challenges from the perspective of a non-government organisation

Abstract

With the rising demand for healthcare services and in view of the global shortage of manpower of healthcare professionals, volunteers have become a new energetic stream of strategic partners in the community to manage contemporary healthcare challenges, and they have been playing active roles in supporting various types of services. In this chapter, a charitable healthcare non-government organisation (NGO) founded in the late 1950s in Hong Kong is selected as a case study. It shows that the NGO has successfully made use of volunteers as a valuable asset since its establishment to extend primary care and rehabilitative services in different manners. On the other hand, despite the efforts and active backing from volunteers, it was a road of obstacles for the NGO to traverse the government bureaucracy and the local medical dominance. This chapter examines healthcare volunteerism, briefs its development in Hong Kong, discusses volunteers’ impact on local primary care, outlines local barriers to a holistic approach to primary care and explores the future directions in Hong Kong.