Interview Goodbye for now Carolynne Dear has her final checkup with Doctor Rosemary Barnett.
Rosemary and husband Tom will soon move back to New Zealand
Sai Kung is sadly set to lose popular long-term residents, Doctors Rosemary Barnett and Tom Buckley. Tom has spent over twenty-five years working in government hospitals across Hong Kong, while his wife Rose has dedicated her time as a GP to the Clearwater Bay and Sai Kung communities, most recently at OT&P Razor Hill. Rosemary arrived in Hong Kong as a newly graduated doctor while Tom was an anaesthetist in 1988 for “a year or so,” says Rose. “We wanted to travel and we’d seen a TV show at home in New Zealand about the Trans Siberian Express railway, so we thought we’d go to Hong Kong, earn some money and go travelling.” Both doctors were offered work in the Territory (Tom as an anaesthetist at Prince of Wales hospital and Rose as a GP at the then Anderson & Partners clinic in Silverstrand), one year turned into two, and the rest, as they say, is history. “We were living in government accommodation at Prince of Wales and I was commuting for up to three hours a day to reach
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The friends we have made really have become our Hong Kong family Clearwater Bay,” she recalls. “These were the days before the road linking Sai Kung with Ma On Shan was open.” Loving the Sai Kung community, the pair eventually moved to government apartments in the area (where The Giverny now stands) in 1992. “We had the top floor, with views out across Shelter Cove,” says Rose. “It was great.” In 1997 they put down more permanent roots, buying a property in Clearwater Bay. Rose took up her current position as GP with OT&P in 1999. During this time they had three children, who are now working and studying in Australia and New Zealand. Tom officially retired one year ago, but has been working at Princess Margaret hospital on an extended two-year contract. He was considering signing up for another two years, when he
suddenly fell ill at the end of July this year. The pair decided, finally, it was time to go home. “It was a crystallising moment,” says Rose. “We’ve been saying “oh, we’re going”, and then “oh no we’re not, another two years”, for a while now. I think Tom’s illness has clarified where we really want to be, and that is back in New Zealand. We have a beautiful family home in Queenstown, overlooking Coronet Peak. The majesty of the environment there is very centering for us.” But she says they will miss Sai Kung terribly. “During all the years we have been here, we have never wanted to live anywhere else in Hong Kong. The local community here is so special. The friends we have made really have become our Hong Kong family. They have been there when we have needed them, but they have always been respectful of the division between our work and our private, family life. We have been so blessed.” There have been major events over the last 25 years when Rose says she has never been more grateful for such friends. “The SARS epidemic in 2003 was momentous for our family,” she says. Tom (by