Italian Catholic missionary Giovanni Petrin is more like a friend than a director to residents of the nursing home he established and has run in Ilan for several decades.
Every day Petrin, 75, who has been in Taiwan for more than 50 years, checks each of the approximately 60 residents at the Wanshan Sanitarium in Ilan County’s Dongshan Township (東山), bringing a touch of humor and gaiety to cheer up his sick, weak and elderly charges.
PHOTO: CNA
The Wanshan Sanatarium was formerly a shelter for tuberculosis patients, but as the disease became less prevalent, it was transformed 16 years ago into a nursing home for people with Alzheimer’s and senile dementia, as well as people in a vegetative state.
Petrin, credited with taking care of more than 8,000 Taiwanese TB patients over the decades, plays with the residents, listens to them babbling, and speaks to them in Mandarin and sometimes in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese).
He is adept at calming his charges when they become agitated and swears by the effectiveness of the candies he always carries around.
Petrin, who came to Taiwan in 1956 as a missionary and nurse at the age of 23, has been director of the Wanshan Sanitarium since 1971. The facility is a branch of St Mary’s Hospital in Ilan’s Luodong Township (羅東), which was established by the Order of St Camillus of Italy more than half a century ago.
Petrin was a compassionate and brave nurse during the early years of the sanitarium, said Chen Su-luan (陳素鑾), who was Petrin’s secretary for more than 30 years and who still works for him as an aide even after retirement.
Chen said Petrin was never afraid to come into close contact with TB patients, who sometimes threw up blood into the faces of medical personnel. He also performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on patients on several occasions, Chen said.
Over the years, Petrin has been cited several times by both the central government and the Ilan County Government for his devotion.
He was lauded as “a real Taiwanese” in 2003 by then-minister of the interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) during a ceremony to honor him and five other foreign missionaries who served at St Mary’s Hospital in Luodong and its affiliated organizations. He has also been praised as “the best Ilan citizen” by former Ilan County commissioner Liu Shou-cheng (劉守成).
Petrin’s good reputation has even reached Italy, his home country, which he has visited fewer than five times over the past 53 years. He was conferred with the prestigious Gardino Roma medal by the Italian government in 2007 for his work abroad.
Since he was awarded permanent residence in 2003, Petrin says he is now Taiwanese and that Taiwan is his home.
Despite his advanced age, Petrin for several years sought a new site to build a larger nursing home to replace the Wanshan Sanitarium, which is old and too small.
Construction at the new nursing home, in Ilan’s Sansing Township (三星) is expected to be completed this month and inaugurated in July, said Huang Jung-kuan, who will be its director.
The new facility, to be named the St Camillus Long-term Care Home, will also have a clinic manned by professionals from St Mary’s Hospital, he said.
Huang, who solicited public donations to help build the new nursing home, said payments to the builders and contractors will have to be made in installments as the donations received by the Wanshan Sanitarium have dropped by about half over the last year.
“The global economic recession has really tightened its grip on disadvantaged groups,” Huang said.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS