Public Columbarium Opens For Foetuses

Health Secretary Sophia Chan on Wednesday opened Hong Kong's first public columbarium for foetuses.

The facility at Wo Hop Shek Kiu Tau Road Columbarium in Fanling comes in response to calls for the government to adopt a more humane approach to handling miscarried or aborted foetuses which were under 24-weeks-old.

These foetuses used to be classed as clinical waste and sent to landfills.

The “Garden of Forever Love”, which will start accepting applications from Thursday, has around 300 spaces for parents to keep cremated foetuses. It will also provide an area for parents to place memorial stones.

Apart from the government facility, two private cemeteries – Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery at Cape Collinson and Tsuen Wan Chinese Permanent Cemetery – already provide similar services.

But Chan acknowledged that there is a high demand for such urn spaces, and said the government will identify more locations to set up further facilities.

“It is a very quiet environment and we have different facilities for these parents to remember their babies or abortuses. We will start taking applications tomorrow and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has plans to further increase this type of facilities in other columbariums”, she said.