LORD CHAN was one of the first “people’s peers” chosen in 2001. He took his place on the crossbenches of the House of Lords, and there continued to serve Britain’s Chinese community. He raised questions on preparedness for Avian flu and joined Baroness Rendell of Babergh’s appeal for greater racial diversity in the theatre.
He was to have sat on the Lords committee to discuss the Mersey Tunnels Bill, which would raise tolls above inflation on the Birkenhead and Wallasey tunnels. He led an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Bill on third reading. A paediatrician with a specialism in blood diseases, Chan served diligently as non-executive director of the Birkenhead and Wallasey NHS Primary Care Trust, and the Wirral & West Cheshire Community NHS Trust.
He was born Michael Chew Koon Chan in Singapore in 1940. He attended the Raffles Institution, and later trained as a medical student at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London.
He returned to Singapore with his new wife, Irene, and remained there until 1974. He was drawn back to London by the chance to study Von Willebrand’s disease, a bleeding disorder, at the University of London. After two years he was offered the post of paediatrician at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and remained in Britain.
An elder of the Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church, Chan furthered his community through committee and charitable work. He chaired the Minority Ethnic Health Taskforce and directed the NHS Ethnic Health Unit from 1994 to 1997. He sat on the Sentencing Advisory Panel and the Press Complaints Commission.
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Chan was the chairman of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission, and it was chiefly for his work in the Chinese Christian community that he was appointed MBE in 1991. He was a patron of the Family Matters Institute and led the Chinese in Britain Forum since it was set up in 1996. There he helped to voice the concerns of Chinese restaurant owners about the decreasing availability of ethnic kitchen staff as controls on immigration were tightened.
In 2004 he drew Parliament’s attention to the plight of newborn babies in communities riven by HIV infection. In 1996 he became Visiting Professor in Ethnic Health, University of Liverpool, and in the city helped to organise short courses in paediatrics for Indian doctors.
He is survived by his wife, and by their son and daughter.
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Lord Chan, MBE, paediatrician, community leader and expert on ethnic health, was born on March 6, 1940. He died on January 21, 2006, aged 65.