During a recent event at Kwai Chung Hospital's Patient Resource & Social Centre, an everyday activity room found itself transformed into a performance space, with an audience being treated to the delightful sound of Christmas songs.

Lam Lai-ying, one of the performers and a peer support worker at the hospital, explained that the aim of the concert was not only to spread festive cheer, but to boost the confidence and outlook of hospitalised mental health 'persons-in-recovery', many of whom participated in the performance.

“Regardless of your mood, you can find healing through songs or music,” she said. “It creates a sense of connection with your peers. This highlights the many activities organised by the hospital to support recovery. We all share the same belief, which I believe is the core value of continuing these events.”

The concert was organised by a band, named "Music Buddy", that was formed by medical staff at the hospital. Yeung Ka-lok, the band's guitarist, initiated it, with the idea of everyone together for a special Christmas performance.

Musical therapy

“The key message of this concert is to give joy to the in-patient service users, that means persons-in-recovery,” Ka-lok explained. “As their daily life inside our hospital area was quite boring, we wished to give them some joy.”

Ka-lok has been working at Kwai Chung Hospital as a registered psychiatric nurse for 13 years. He is currently responsible for organising various activities for persons-in-recovery. The Christmas concert was the 11th event he had arranged for patients since March of last year, with concerts of different themes being held approximately every two months.

Team effort

On the day of the performance, Ka-lok arrived at the centre early in the morning to prepare, transforming the activity room into a concert venue by arranging various musical instruments and testing out the sound system.

Prior to the event he invited hospital staff and volunteers to make large-scale decorations, using balloons, to help create a festive atmosphere.

Team members assisted in a variety of other ways, too.

“As our Patient Resource & Social Centre was not a place for musical performances, we do not have many musical instruments and live performance gear, such as amplifiers,” Ka-lok said. “Luckily, we have a lot of nice, kind colleagues and volunteers. Once they knew that we were going to conduct a mini-concert, they donated some of the gear to us, to the hospital.”

Building confidence

While some of the in-patients involved had participated in previous concerts, for others this was their first time taking the stage. Au Pak-hang was one of those making his debut, and said he had been practising his song for a month and a half.

“Everyone should try something new in life,” he said. “I aimed to convey a message that patients with mental health conditions can recover and perform in front of audiences.”

Ka-lok added that he and his colleagues will continue to identify potential persons-in-recovery who would benefit from participating in the concerts, and will offer them guidance and training to prepare them for performing in front of an audience.

“We hope that their performance can inspire our persons-in-recovery, that it can cheer them up, helping them to regain the self-confidence which they lost due to their mental health disease.”