| Listening With Patience | ||||||||
| By Huang Xiu-hua Translated by Tang Yau-yang Photos by Hsiao Yiu-hwa | ||||||||
Tacloban is not too far from Taiwan, but it took the Tzu Chi medical delegation, which set out on November 22, 2013, more than 20 hours to travel the distance. The team was to provide free medical service to people who had survived Typhoon Haiyan. Traveling for so many hours is never easy, but it was even harder on the group because of an added concern—that their luggage might be lost in transit. In addition to their personal luggage, they had brought along 57 boxes of relief supplies. They had to make sure they didn’t lose any of those. The delegation members counted their luggage and parcels every time they made a transfer, something they had to do quite frequently. First there was the flight to Manila, then a short domestic flight to Cebu. (The airport in Tacloban was temporarily closed, so they couldn’t fly there directly from Manila.) After that they took a 3-hour boat ride to Ormoc, followed by a late night bus ride to their lodgings there. Finally, at 4:00 the next morning, they left Ormoc for the last leg of their journey: a bumpy 4-hour bus trip in darkness to Tacloban. As their buses traveled along the road, the dawn made the land outside more visible. The delegation members saw that every so often people at the sides of the roads were holding up hand-written signs saying things like “Help us” or “We need food.” The more the volunteers saw, the more they felt the gravity of their mission descending on them. They told themselves they weren’t there just to provide medical treatment but also to offer gentle care and love to their patients—people who were suffering greatly.
Free clinic Soon after their arrival, the delegation held a free clinic at Leyte Progressive High School. With the limited clinic space, Tzu Chi personnel did the best they could to improvise areas for internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology, and dentistry. Though these areas were undoubtedly rudimentary as far as medical clinics went, they were sufficiently functional.
One hurdle still stood in the doctors’ way of providing care to the crowd of patients: language. The patients mostly spoke only local dialects. They did not know English and therefore could not communicate with the physicians from Taiwan without the help of interpreters. The Tzu Chi Philippine branch had volunteers who could interpret, but they were spread thin. Many of them were on assignment at other aid efforts, such as the cash-for-work cleanup program, that were being offered at the same time. Since not every doctor had a dedicated interpreter, the doctors took a crash course on the essential vocabulary in the local dialect that they might need to care for their patients. Volunteers also wrote the names of commonly seen ailments and their translations on blackboards to which the doctors could refer. For the six internal medicine doctors, a few simple words such as “sipon—common cold” and “sakit—pain” were particularly handy. The doctors made up for what the crash course didn’t cover by using body language or whatever other way they could find to communicate with the patients. That, coupled with their patience and an eagerness to help, was enough to help them treat the most commonly seen complaints, such as colds, diarrhea, asthma and hypertension. Surgical clinics did not require as much communication; a look at the wound was usually sufficient for the doctors to determine the problem and perform the proper treatment. Dr. Robert Sy (盧尾丁), a member of the Philippine chapter of the Tzu Chi International Medical Association, said that most injured patients had waited more than ten days by the time they were treated at the free clinic. His heart really went out to them for the suffering they had endured. At the same time, he was grateful to the visiting doctors for coming all the way from Taiwan to help. “When patients are in pain and agony, even just a little help from us doctors means a great deal to them,” he said. Chien Sou-hsin (簡守信), a plastic surgeon and superintendent of Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, tried to calm one patient down before he cleaned his wound. Despite his efforts, the patient was on edge—he looked away and tightly clamped a towel between his teeth. Lin Chang-hung (林昌宏), chief of anesthesia of Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, talked softly to him and gently gave him an injection of anesthesia. Chien finished cleaning the lesion a few minutes later; the relieved patient smiled and thanked the doctors repeatedly. Many pregnant women had been physically knocked around by the typhoon, and some of them came to the clinic wanting to know if their fetuses were still in good health. The clinic was not equipped with an ultrasound machine, but Huang Si-cheng (黃思誠), a deputy superintendent of Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, had all he needed. With years of clinical experience behind him, he used his hands and stethoscope to feel and listen to those women, and he was glad to tell each of them that their unborn babies were well and moving normally. That brought a big sigh of relief to each of the worried women. An old woman had had a painfully swollen eye for several days when she came to the free clinic. Her condition had been caused by some metal rust that had gotten into her eye when she was cleaning her house after the typhoon. Peng Yi-jie (彭義傑), an ophthalmologist from Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, carefully administered local anesthetic to the woman, doused her eye with a saline solution, and washed out the rust before further complications could develop. This was the first time pediatrician Tsai Wen-hsin (蔡文心), also from Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, volunteered at an international free clinic. She observed that most of the children that she had treated suffered from gastroenteritis, while some had common colds and one was in an early stage of pneumonia. Children were more susceptible to gastroenteritis due to their lower immunity and the poor hygiene in disaster zones. Some children caught colds when they were forced to wear damp clothes. Because their homes were damaged or destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan, their parents had to dry their laundry out in the open air. But since it rained a lot after the disaster, the clothes were drenched before they got a chance to dry out. Dr. Tsai prescribed medicine for the children and urged parents to pay extra attention to prevent their children from catching another cold.
An observant doctor Aside from caring for people who had come to seek medical attention, Chao You-chen (趙有誠), superintendent of Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, was quick to notice something awry with a volunteer who worked with him. Nonie, an 11-year-old local boy who spoke fluent English, volunteered as an interpreter for Dr. Chao. The physician noticed that Nonie was often short of breath, his lips purplish, and that he had clubbed fingers, a thickening of the fingertips that gave them an abnormally rounded appearance. The boy’s chest also protruded and his heart beat with abnormally pronounced sounds. Chao suspected that Nonie had a heart condition, so he asked cardiologist Chang Heng-chia (張恒嘉), deputy superintendent of Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, to take a look. Dr. Chang diagnosed the boy with tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect.
After the clinic concluded that day, Chao paid a visit to Nonie’s home. Nine people—Nonie’s parents, his four siblings, two other relatives, and Nonie himself—lived in a small house that had been damaged by Typhoon Haiyan. It seemed that they had more people than belongings in the house. What they were wearing was all the clothing they had left. A few cooking and eating utensils rounded out their entire worldly possessions. Nonie’s father was a fisherman and his mother a housewife. They said that they had sought medical treatment when the boy was one year old. The doctor suggested surgery and estimated that it would cost two million pesos, which was an insurmountable sum then and still was now, a decade later. Unable to afford the treatment, Nonie had lived all his life with the heart condition, which had worsened with time. Nonie reported to work at the free clinic the following morning and continued to help Tzu Chi doctors communicate with patients. Dr. Chang asked Nonie if he wanted to receive complete treatment at a Tzu Chi hospital in Taiwan, and the boy replied, “Yes, I want to go to Taiwan. I want to visit that beautiful place.” Tzu Chi volunteers in the Philippines would arrange for Nonie to get preliminary examinations in Manila. The results would help them formulate their next moves to help the boy.
Touched Though giving free medical treatment was the primary objective of the medical delegation, they also participated in distributions of daily wages to people who worked in the cash-for-work program. These sideline encounters turned out to be very emotional for many physicians. Dr. Lin Chin-lon (林俊龍), CEO of the Tzu Chi medical mission, gave kudos to the Tzu Chi volunteers in the Philippines, whose ranks were thin in the face of the large crowds they were helping. Lin called attention to how capable they had been in developing good relationships with the local residents, opening their hearts, and mobilizing them to do good for their neighborhoods by taking part in the work relief program. Lin said that he had been moved again and again as he witnessed the heart-warming interactions between Philippine Tzu Chi volunteers and typhoon victims. Superintendent Chien of the Taichung hospital emphasized that psychological comfort sometimes works faster for the body than tablets and pills. He pointed out that when individuals in similar circumstances gather, they are often cheered and uplifted by others in the group. Together, their suffering seems more bearable, their moods are elevated, and their hope for the future is rekindled. Hsu Wen-lin (許文林), a deputy superintendent of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, experienced more emotional undulations at a cash-for-work staging area in Anibong than anywhere else. Workers had assembled in a narrow street after a day’s work. More than 3,000 people filled the street, but they formed orderly lines, ten people to a row. It was a huge crowd, but everything proceeded in an orderly fashion. When volunteer event leader Michael Siao (蔡昇航) spoke into the microphone and asked everybody to pray sincerely, people responded and the place became totally silent. The only sounds were from occasional passing cars. “Three thousand people had squatted by the road for an hour, but when they were invited to pray, they closed their eyes and did it without a sound,” exclaimed Hsu. “That blew my mind!” Tang Dao-qian (湯道謙), a gastrologist at the Hualien hospital, was also moved, especially when he saw work relief program participants enthusiastically drop coins into coin banks at the venue to help with Tzu Chi’s charity work. He had been a little cheerless for a couple of days because he was unaccustomed to the delegation’s crude living accommodations. They did not stay in a hotel, but in a deserted medical school whose roofs had been damaged by Haiyan. There were no hot showers and only one restroom for more than a hundred people. Each delegation member got a mosquito net and a plastic straw mat, and they slept on a hard floor, definitely not a comfortable or restful bed. Having to endure that kind of situation for two nights in a row bothered Tang quite a bit, so he had not been smiling much. However, he began to smile a lot more after he witnessed the harmonious and warm atmosphere at the work relief staging area that afternoon. “I’ve really been enlightened,” he said. Tang said that he had visited a former classmate in New Orleans, Louisiana, in August 2005. A week later, on August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. Fortunately, Tang and his host family had already evacuated the area ahead of time, but when things had settled down, they returned to the host’s home. New Orleans was in total disarray. There was news of looting and other violence in the immediate aftermath of the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, so they carried guns to protect themselves. Now, he was in another disaster area years later and thousands of miles away, but he was witnessing and experiencing something completely different. He was really impressed by the orderly behavior of the disaster victims in Tacloban. The medical delegation was scheduled to return to Taiwan on November 26. Their schedule was packed during their short stay in the disaster area. They were understandably weary most of the time they were there, but fortunately other volunteers took care of things for them so they could concentrate on their mission. “I woke up after three o’clock one morning, and as I walked outside I saw volunteers already hustling in the kitchen, preparing meals for us,” Dr. Chien said. “They were the real unsung heroes in our mission.” They helped make the doctors’ work possible.
More helpers After the first medical delegation from Taiwan left the disaster area, another one arrived to take over the work. From November 23 to December 16, 2013, Tzu Chi medical delegations worked in relays to provide medical care to typhoon victims. Over that time, the teams logged 6,017 patient visits. The delegations were composed of volunteers from Taiwan and other countries; they were doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, and practitioners in other medical-related fields. It was a consensus among them that, though they had undertaken the trip to Tacloban to help and provide medical care, they also experienced a journey of learning, of spiritual enrichment. Dr. Nancy Chen (陳南詩), an ophthalmologist at Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, served in Tacloban in early December. She was deeply shaken when a local Catholic priest described to her the devastating power of Typhoon Haiyan. The priest said that when people heard that a typhoon was coming, many took shelter in the basements of their homes. Everyone was caught completely off guard when floodwaters quickly submerged the area. In a short time, people lost not only everything they had but even family members. Chen felt as if she were hearing about a scene from Armageddon. She didn’t encounter many people with injured eyes as she treated patients, but many told her they couldn’t see clearly. For many, their eyeglasses had been carried away by the floods. Fortunately, the Philippine chapter of the Tzu Chi International Medical Association had prepared 550 pairs of eyeglasses to give away. Chen witnessed the helplessness of disaster victims, but she was also touched by their warm friendliness. When Tzu Chi volunteers tried to cheer them up, they were quick to respond with a smile and a “God bless you!” When Chen finished her stint at Tacloban, she returned to Manila before heading back home to Taiwan. There she took her first hot shower in several days. At that moment, she felt that not only was her body clean, but that her spirit had also been purified by her experience in the disaster area. As the medical institutions in the disaster area gradually returned to service, the work of Tzu Chi doctors naturally came to an end. The volunteers packed up and returned to their home countries and their regular lives. The delegation members, like Dr. Chen, were glad to have helped take love to Tacloban, and they will always remember their warm interactions with the disaster victims. |
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