There are three major charitable projects, i.e. National Hospice Service Program, National Medical Aid for the Poor Project, and Rainbow Project, initiated and supported by Mr. Li Ka-shing and his foundation to encourage students, faculty and healthcare professionals to provide aid for the poor and needy. Please read more about these projects below, or click on the icons in the left-side pane for details of each project.

Mr. Li Ka-shing believes that terminal cancer patients should die in peace and with dignity. In pursuit of this ideal, Li Ka Shing Foundation founded the National Hospice Service Program in 1998, with the first Hospice Unit set up at SUMC‘s First Affiliated Hospital. The program provides for free home-based holistic care to impoverished patients with advanced cancer during the terminal stages of their lives, offering them pain relief, nursing care and psychological counseling. Over the past 15 years, 36 Hospice Units have been established in mainland China, 32 Units currently in operation, and over 0.17 million patients have been served, involving thousands of volunteer healthcare workers and medical students.

With China's rapid development over the past few decades, unfortunately, achieving universal access to healthcare in some rural and remote regions is still a great challenge. The Medical Aid for the Poor Project, set up in 1998 by the Li Ka Shing Foundation, aims at providing free medical services and home consultation services to rural residents across the nation. Through concerted efforts of the Li Ka Shing Foundation, SUMC's five affiliated hospitals, and many thousands of volunteering students. Around 543,000 underprivileged people residing in remote and impoverished areas have received free medical service, and 13,509 patients have received free operations including 2,454 cataract operations and 1,371 cleft-lip and cleft-palate operations. 564 Children with cerebral palsy have received surgical treatment and/or rehabilitation. The National Medical Students Summer Outreach is one of The Medical Aid for the Poor Project activities. Eleven sessions have been held in Jiangxi, Guizhou, Shandong and Guangdong, providing filed education for medical students. The project won the “Most Influential Charity Project Award” of the 7th China Charity Award.

Rainbow Project was launched jointly by the Li Ka-shing Foundation Consultant Office at SUMC and the Second Affiliated Hospital of SUMC in December 2012 to provide impoverished children suffering from cleft lip or cleft palate with free treatment and rehabilitation, especially speech therapy and orthodontic management after surgery. The Cleft Lip & Palate treatment center in SUMC's Second Affiliated Hospital has been cooperating with Chang Gung Hospital in Taiwan to improve the quality of service. The center also provides post-operative follow up for the disadvantaged children in rural areas who are not able to return to the hospital for check-ups. Over 100 patients have benefited since the inception of the project.