20131116感恩團隊救病苦 The Contribution of TIMA and Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital
“Greetings, Master!”
“Hello, everyone.”
“Master, we have 158 TIMA volunteers here.”
Our TIMA medical volunteers, I rarely have the opportunity to meet with you, but you have done a lot to help the people in need. You go to places I cannot go to. You reach out to care for those I am unable to reach and care for. You are all so dedicated in giving your love. With your contributions, we are able to conduct medical outreaches all across Taiwan, be it places up in the mountains or in remote areas.
You are even gone to off-islands or other countries to provide free medical services. All these missions are made possible by your loving contribution. I am very, very grateful and very touched. Earlier, I heard our TIMA doctors’ sharing. Many run their own clinic and are very busy.
But, they are able to make time despite their heavy workload to do medical outreaches up in remote areas, etc. seeing everyone’s reports, I am very, very touched and very grateful. Speaking of free medical services, we have been doing this for more than 40 years. Six years after Tzu Chi was founded, we established a free clinic in Hualien.
To run our free clinic, doctors from the government-run Hua-Lien Hospital from the four departments of internal medicine, surgery, OB/GYN and pediatrics, along with nurses, all came to help, allowing our free clinic to open and provide medical services twice a week.
It was because of this free clinic that we came to discover how lacking in medical resources Hualien was, which is what led us to the decision to build a hospital in Hualien. In the early years, our medical care was not limited to the free clinic in Hualien. We also did medical outreaches in Yuli, Juisui and Taitung. This was how our medical mission started, more than 40 years ago and continues today.
Just now, we saw how our TIMA volunteers in Taiwan went to a very remote area to serve. They drove over two hours to reach an area without medical resources. Since the residents could not come to us, we went to them. We also went to the local veterans’ home. In the past, there were many residents living in the home.
But their numbers have gradually dwindled. Such is life. As they age, they feel so alone and are afflicted with illness. In such circumstances, a group of bodhisattvas and our doctors with the heart of a Buddha go to them. We not only treat their illness, but also comfort and warm their hearts.
And so we say that the most beautiful thing in the world is the genuine smile of a patient. Their smiles give us the most joy. Everyone gives of themselves and works so hard all to help the patients so they can smile such smiles of joy and happiness. I am truly so grateful to everyone for this.
Every year at our overseas certification camp or at other large Tzu Chi activities, we can see our TIMA volunteers and doctors from our Tzu Chi hospitals, stationed at the event, whether held in our offices in Sanchong, Banqiao and Luzhou.
Every tim we hold a large activity, we need our TIMA doctors to look after the health of our attendees with love. When I see you all there, I will know that the health of all there will be looked after. If I don’t see you there, I will worry about everyone’s health. If I see you there, I will know that everyone at the activity will be taken care of.
So, I am truly very, very grateful. I am moreover grateful to our superintendent of Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital and all department heads. They are all very mindful in conducting medical outreaches to remote areas and working together with our TIMA volunteers to have greater capacity to help more people.
As for our Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital itself, I am always very grateful to all our staff. While being grateful at every moment, I am also very touched because in the metropolitan area of Taipei, medical standards are very high and competitive. Of course, our hospital’s objective is not to out-compete the other hospitals here.
Our focus is to save lives and safeguard health with love. I have heard the way our doctors work together with our nurses to take good care of patients, with nurses responding to patients’ needs like the Bodhissattva of Compassion. Seeing how closely everyone works as a team, you really have a very strong team.
Moreover, nowadays, we often hear about the shortage of nurses. But, our hospital really cherishes our new nurses be developing and training them. Our experienced nurses are like mothers and sisters in the way they care for new nurses and mentor and train them. I am truly very grateful to find that our nurses’ attentive care even extends to making arrangements for one patient’s dogs so he or she can come to the hospital.
Truly, this is the power of love. Our staff does not just treat diseases, but care for the patients as a person. They even take care of the person’s other needs, such as his or her pets. I am truly very touched.
Besides providing medical services, we continue to do research. Our research has received awards. This is truly a very touching development. Besides providing good medical care, our doctors also have to conduct research. At the same time, they have to write papers.
For them to write such good research papers, that they win awards for their research, and to have so many papers nominated as well, this is truly happy news.
We also saw the difficult treatments carried out by our medical team, whether it is for the heart, lung, nose or brain.
These were all very complicated cases. The doctors’ skills are astounding. No matter which of our Tzu Chi hospitals it is, we can always see our doctors being so mindful in providing treatment to such a degree that after they do a full day’s surgery, they even stay on to give special care in the Intensive Care unit.
They provide such a series of care to safeguard the patient’s life and health. They do all this out of love. We also saw a patient in her eighties with a successful heart surgery. This was such a difficult surgery.
Yet, our doctors manually stitched one bypass artery for her. That graft helped this patient save close to NT $1million and also gave her the ability to climb up four flights of stairs. Truly, there are many cases where our doctors gave the right diagnosis and were able to successfully treat the condition.
Some of the surgeries were truly high-risk yet our doctors still completed it successfully, especially surgeries on the brain, heart and etc and also treatment to preserve patients’ legs and keep it from being amputated.
We are truly very grateful that our hospital has this opportunity to do our utmost and put our skills to use to truly save lives and help people. This is the objective of Tzu Chi’s medical mission. We don’t seek much.
We only wish to provide medical care with sincerity and integrity to love and care for our fellow human beings as well as Mother Earth and all of existence. This is our shared direction.
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