20150412《人間菩提》罕病少女‧義診緣起The History of Tzu Chi’s Free Clinic Service
We really need to recognize that all life is equally sacred. All animals are living creatures like us. We must protect and care for them. Indeed, we ought to love and protect any and all creatures, for they have life too. We can’t just kill them because we want to.
All that we do creates karma and has consequences which we will reap. I truly hope that everyone will realize this reality of cause and effect, and know that our sufferings are due to our deeds. All the bad things that happen result from the many impurities in our hearts that breed wrong, deluded thinking and attitudes. With such blindness and wrong thinking, conflict, violence, and natural disasters will inevitably come about. It not only causes turmoil and unrest in society, but also creates much hardship and suffering.
Life is truly full of suffering. We see a 19-year-old young woman in India with a body size of an average two-year-old child because she suffers from congenital agenesis of the bones, so her body has failed to develop normally. However, she has a very strong aspiration. She is an artist who paints and draws. She sells her paintings. She says that she sells five or six paintings a month, making between 4,000and 5,000 TWD (US$128 and $160).
This is indeed a very courageous endeavor. With a body height of a two-year-old, this 19-year-old young woman can’t control her body and her life. she was born with this rare medical condition. She is truly helpless about it. However, she says: “I don’t like anyone pitying me. I have to look after my parents. I need to have the financial capacity to do that.”She said, “I am not sad for being too small.”She is very positive about her future.
She said, “I have an aim to achieve more in life.” She faces each and every one of her days with a happy and confident attitude. Life’s circumstances can be so sad.
This is why I often say that life is full of suffering and things don’t always go our way. This makes the mission of medicine even more critical. On this day in 2004, we see that Tzu Chi International Medical Association (TIMA) won the Fourteen Medical Contribution Award. Our TIMA members truly give of themselves very mindfully for the entire world.
Their valuable services to serve society deserve such an award every year because they give of themselves completely and selflessly. They travel deep into the mountains and to remote villages to serve and do not stop to rest. They even cross the oceans to provide medical help. Sometimes they travelled even further to remote areas overseas to provide international disaster relief. TIMA volunteers pay for their own travel expenses and together with other Tzu Chi volunteers, they go to the most needy areas to provide help.
They love everyone as they love their own family. They serve the public good and help everyone without making distinctions. This is great compassion for all, for everyone to genuinely feel the pain and suffering of others. Such love is truly very vast and powerful.
Seeing TIMA activities makes me recall how Tzu Chi started its medical mission in 1972. Six years after Tzu Chi was founded, we opened a free clinic center on Renai Street in Hualien City. At that time, five doctors from the government-run Hua-Lien Hospital volunteered to help: a surgeon, Dr. Huang, a pediatrician, Dr. Chang, his father, also Dr. Chang, who specialized in Internal Medicine, Dr. Chu who specialized in OB/GYN, and a family doctor, Dr. Zou.
Several doctors spent their off-time serving at our free clinic center twice a week along with two nurses who were also Tzu Chi commissioners. That was how we provided free medical services twice a week. Sometimes, when Tzu Chi volunteers had a cold or hypertension and came to the clinic, Dr. Chang said to them: “Your blood pressure is so high, let me prescribe some medicine for you. Often, the volunteer would reply, “You say I have hypertension I will buy the medicine you prescribed. I mustn’t take the medicine from the free clinic.”
Tzu Chi volunteers avoided taking the medicines we prescribed to them, as these free medicines were for the poor who came to the free clinic. They distinguished this very clearly and never mixed personal use with public services. That was the first time I saw this.
Tzu Chi volunteers told the doctor that they would never take even one tablet of medicine from the free clinic center. Dr. Chang said that Tzu Chi volunteers knew very clearly that the medicines were for the poor people. At that time, we purchased good quality medicines. That’s why he said that Tzu Chi volunteers give of themselves with love and no self-interest. That was Dr. Chang’s observation. Dr. Huang was a surgeon.
This was me. Another was next to me, holding her child.
This program looks at past events. This free clinic had been many years ago indeed.
It’s been about 40 years since you saw Dr. Huang. How do you feel about meeting him now?
I am grateful to him. Truly grateful to him.
Thank you.
Back then, you were the school girl in the photo at the upper right corner. We see that the tumor removed from your abdomen was quite large in size. The tumor weighed 187.5 grams. That’s right. Can you recall what brought you to the free clinic center to see the doctor?
At that time, I had a slight cold. My mother took me to the free clinic center. Dr. Huang touched my belly and felt something hard there. Dr. Huang thought that something was not right. He suggested my mother to take me to HuaLien Hospital to be checked by a doctor.
I still have the scar from that surgery. Sometimes I would tell myself that had Dr. Huang not saved my life then, I wouldn’t be alive or be here now.
When I reflect on that time, people were eager to give of themselves. It is still the same now with the TIMA members who voluntarily and selflessly devote their time and love, paying for their own expenses to travel to many countries abroad in order to relieve people from suffering.
There are countless inspiring stories from TIMA. We’re deeply grateful to these doctors who are truly deserving of love and respect. They are living Buddhas and bodhisattvas who rescue people from suffering in our world. There is so much to be grateful for. Therefore, we are always grateful for the help in our past and at the present. We truly look forward to the coming future where we can continuously pass on this Great Love all over the world. I’m truly touched.
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