Media Releases

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) yesterday (11 Oct) named the rehabilitation engineering clinic on its campus after Jockey Club in recognition of its longstanding support for the University over the years and its recent donation of $19.38 million to support the University’s development of rehabilitation engineering.

The ceremony was officiated at by Mr David Eldon, Steward of the Hong Kong Jockey Club; Mr Victor Lo, PolyU Chairman of Council; and Prof. Poon Chung-kwong, PolyU President.

During the ceremony, Mr Lo said the Club’s donation had come at a time of need. He said, “The latest benefaction from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust in support of rehabilitation services has a very special meaning for the community at large.”

Prof. Poon also said PolyU would continue to do its best to serve the community by offering more customized technologies and products to cater for the special needs of the elderly and the disabled.

Conveniently located on the ground floor for easy access to the less privileged, the new Jockey Club Rehabilitation Engineering Clinic, which is run by the Jockey Club Rehabilitation Engineering Centre (REC), has been offering holistic rehabilitation services for clients who need prostheses, orthoses, functional electrical stimulation, special seating, assistive devices and motion analysis. Specialist consultation and information resources have also been provided to the community. With the recent benefaction from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, besides integrating its client-based assistive technology services, the Centre will develop innovative technologies for the elderly and the disabled.

With a firm commitment to charity and community services in Hong Kong, Jockey Club in 1987 helped established the Jockey Club Rehabilitation Engineering Centre (REC) with a grant of $10.4 million to develop technologies to support the rehabilitation of people with disabilities. The Club has also provided an additional endowment fund of $31.5 million to support the Centre’s continuous development over the past 17 years.

Since its establishment, REC has developed a wide range of assistive devices to help people with disabilities to become more independent and better integrated into the society. It has also designed therapeutic and evaluative devices to assist rehabilitation professionals in their clinical treatment and care of their clients. With the number of assistive technologies designed by REC for individual clients each year and the potential number of clients who have benefited annually from the therapeutic technologies developed by REC for local rehabilitation institutions, the total number of beneficiaries could go well beyond 12,000 per year. Earlier this year, REC also designed a suitable communicative device that could simply be controlled by the head motion of Ah Pun, a quadriplegic patient who had appealed for legalization of euthanasia.

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