The World Health Organization’s (“WHO”) Regional Director for the Western Pacific, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, visited the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub (“JCCH”) at Tai Po on 14 March, where he learned about the Club’s decades-long contribution to the development of primary health-care services in Hong Kong for the young olds (50+) and elders (60+). The trip formed part of his official visit to Hong Kong and Macau to learn about the development of primary health care in the two special administrative regions.
Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO’s Regional Director for the Western Pacific (3rd right), Imelda Chan, Head of Charities (Positive Ageing & Elderly Care; and Healthy Community) of The Hong Kong Jockey Club (1st right), and Brian San, Co-secretary General of IoP (3rd left), tour the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub to learn more about its day care and primary care services such as dietetic cooking class and Chinese medicine clinic.
Accompanied by Imelda Chan, Head of Charities (Positive Ageing & Elderly Care; and Healthy Community) of The Hong Kong Jockey Club, and Brian San, Co-Secretary General of the Institute of Philanthropy (“IoP”), Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala was briefed on the latest primary care services and facilities at the CADENZA Hub and also met some of the beneficiaries.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Charities Trust initiated the “CADENZA: A Jockey Club Initiative for Seniors” project in 2006 to improve quality of life and care for the elderly. JCCH was set up in 2009 as a community project under CADENZA, providing one-stop and diversified services including primary care and day care.
Guests tour the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub to learn more about its day care and primary care services.
“It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to learn about the work and efforts of the CADENZA Hub in promoting and implementing primary health-care services for the young olds and the elders,” Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala said. “The experiences and feedback collected from these services will be a great reference for the WHO’s efforts to enhance global health standards, particularly in advancing primary health care.”
Imelda Chan, Head of Charities (Positive Ageing & Elderly Care; and Healthy Community), said: “An ageing population presents a significant challenge for Hong Kong and the rest of the world, increasing the pressure on public health-care systems. We are honoured to have this opportunity to share the Club’s efforts with WHO in adopting innovative approaches to strengthen primary health-care services and create an elderly- and age-friendly community environment.”
Guests tour the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub to learn more about its day care and primary care services.
JCCH uses a “medical-social collaboration” model providing diversified services for the elderly including day care for people with dementia featuring therapeutic programmes, basic nursing care and rehabilitation exercises to improve their self-care capabilities and delay cognitive decline. It also offers primary-care services such as eye examinations, aural screening, traditional Chinese medicine (“TCM”) consultations, advice on diet and nutrition as well as workshops and training programmes on monitoring well-being to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent premature frailty. Since its inception, JCCH seen more than 400,000 people attend its primary care and day-care services.
In recent years, JCCH has also served as a testing ground for collaboration on new pilot projects with universities and non-governmental organisations before they get scaled up to territory wide programmes. These include the Jockey Club Integrating TCM into Chronic Disease Prevention and Management Project, which promotes chronic disease prevention and management through TCM screening and treatment; the Jockey Club “Shining Journey 50+”Women Wellness Programme, which takes reference from WHO’s Integrated Care for Older People framework to promote wellness for women aged 50 to 64; and the Trust-initiated Jockey Club Community eHealth Care Project, which applies eHealth technology to encourage elderly people to improve their self-management.
Visiting the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub are Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO’s Regional Director for the Western Pacific (4th right); Imelda Chan, Head of Charities (Positive Ageing & Elderly Care; and Healthy Community) of The Hong Kong Jockey Club (4th left); Brian San, Co secretary General of IoP (3rd right); Professor Sophia Chan, Convenor of the Advisory Committee of the Jockey Club Pharm+ Community Medication Service Network (3rd left); Professor Timothy Kwok, Director of the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing (2nd right);Dr Liu Yue, Executive Officer of the Division of Programme Management for WHO’s Western Pacific Reginal Office (2nd left); Florence Ho, General Manager of the Jockey Club CADENZA Hub (1st right); and Professor Bian Zhaoxiang, Associate Vice-President (Clinical Chinese Medicine) of Hong Kong Baptist University (1st left).
In addition to building a healthy community in Hong Kong, the Club and its Charities Trust established IoP in 2023 as a “think-fund-do” tank to promote philanthropic thought-leadership. It aims to professionalise the sector and fund impactful philanthropy, including contributing to WHO’s efforts to tackle critical global health challenges. This January, IoP hosted a special event at the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2025 in Bangkok, where it announced a donation of US$1.9 million (HK$14.8 million) to fund a three-year pilot project by the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office. This focuses on controlling and managing non-communicable diseases within primary-care settings in the Philippines, Tonga and the Solomon Islands.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s story begins in his native El Salvador, but it's become increasingly unclear where it will end.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S. from a notorious Salvadoran prison, rejecting the White House's claim that it couldn't retrieve Abrego Garcia after mistakenly deporting him.
Trump administration officials have pushed back against bringing him back, arguing it is up to El Salvador. The president of El Salvador said he lacked the power to return Abrego Garcia, saying it would be “preposterous" to “smuggle a terrorist into the United States.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.
Trump administration officials said he was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said.
A U.S. immigration judge subsequently shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs. The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, later describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but insisting he was in MS-13.
As his case continues in the U.S. courts, here is Abrego Garcia's story so far:
Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador’s capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, the nation’s signature dish of flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork.
The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. Abrego Garcia’s job was buying ingredients and making deliveries with his older brother, Cesar.
“Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from ‘Pupuseria Cecilia,’” his lawyers wrote.
A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money” and threatened to kill Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren’t paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.
Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, according to his immigration case. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid “all of the money that they wanted.” They still watched him as he walked to and from school.
The family moved 10 minutes away, but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia’s sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found work in construction.
About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George’s County, outside Washington.
In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing, according to the records.
Local police contacted a criminal informant who said Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, the interview sheet stated.
Now, attorneys for Abrego Garcia say the informant had identified an MS-13 chapter in New York, where Abrego Garcia has never lived.
Prince George's County Police did not charge the men and had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or “any new intelligence" on him, the department said in a recent statement.
Local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to his immigration case. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months into a high-risk pregnancy, case documents say.
The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to his immigration case. The information was enough for an immigration judge in April 2019 to keep Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership.
Abrego Garcia appealed the judge's decision to keep him in jail, but that was later denied, records show.
Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail.
In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal.
Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice.
In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records.
Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out “privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”
“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,” she stated. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”
She said the protection order doesn't justify his deportation.
“Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him,” she said.
In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect human trafficking, the report stated.
Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued.
Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.”
Abrego Garcia and Vasquez Sura were raising three kids, including their 5-year-old son, who has autism, is deaf in one ear and unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint against the Trump administration. They were also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.
In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and sought to remove identified members “as expeditiously as possible,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
Abrego Garcia was pulled over March 12 outside an Ikea in Baltimore with his son, according to court records. An agent called Vasquez Sura and said she had 10 minutes to retrieve their son or ICE would request child protective services.
Abrego Garcia called his wife from jail and said authorities pressed him about MS-13, according to court documents. They asked about a photo they had of him playing basketball on a public court, and his family’s visits to a restaurant serving Mexican and Salvadoran food.
“He would repeat the truth again and again — that he was not in a gang,” Vasquez Sura stated in court documents.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., accompanied by Cesar Abrego Garcia, from left, and Cecilia Garcia, speaks during a news conference upon his arrival from meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., left, walks in the terminal after speaking during a news conference upon his arrival from meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jennifer Vasquez Sura cries as Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., speaks during a news conference upon his arrival from meeting with her husband Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, right, stands with supporters during a news conference at CASA's Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, speaks during a news conference at CASA's Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
