“All the elderly need is really just your care and concern,” said five postal workers, who were recently awarded for their long-term care of single seniors.
Although the recipients of the honor said they only paid “a little extra attention” to the elderly, social services praised them for what they called acts of selflessness.
Wang Bing-chieh (王炳杰) of the post office in Sansia (三峽), New Taipei City (新北市); Lee Lung-shun (李龍順) of the post office in Jiji (集集), Nantou County; Huang Yung-lin (黃永霖) of the Shuangfu post office in Mixiong Township (民雄), Chiayi County; Chang Te-cheng (張特誠) of the Paiho post office in Greater Tainan; and Lu Ming-te (魯明德) of the Greater Tainan post office, all had paid special attention to seniors living on their own last year, becoming a beacon of light for seniors in more rural areas, social services officials said.
Among their good deeds, Lee last year visited more than 260 seniors, while Huang helped one senior prepare funeral services for a family member and Lu often bought daily necessities for them.
Wang, nicknamed “squad leader” by the other postal workers, not only cared for the elderly living alone, but also formed a “care committee” with other colleagues to help seniors in need.
Last year, Wang and some friends used their own money to install handrails for the elderly after discovering that slopes in front of some seniors’ homes were overgrown with moss.
This simple measure would prevent the elderly from slipping on the moss and injuring themselves, Wang said.
Chang, who sets out from Paiho for Tungshan Township (東山), Greater Tainan, every day to deliver mail, said he had many friends in the mountainous areas of Tungshan. By his own calculations, he spends about one-third of this work time chatting with the elderly along his route.
Last year, Chang came upon an elderly man who was showing symptoms of toxic reactions from medication. Unable to get an ambulance, had took the ailing man to the hospital.
As the quintet gathered for the ceremony, they compared notes on the subject, planning their next moves.
Wang and Chang found out after a discussion that with Sansia in close proximity to Taipei, the ratio of chronic illnesses was relatively high compared with the Tungshan area.
Chang said that as most seniors in Tungshan still did agricultural work, they tended to be in better physical condition, though he said he was always worried whenever one of his acquaintances, aged 79, climbed trees to pick longan.
Taichung Bureau of Social Affairs Director Wang Hsiu-yan (王秀燕) said that postal workers old and new were the most important channel to care for single elderly persons, because their daily proximity with the elderly enabled them to know if anything was out of the ordinary.
“The Greater Taichung Government once worked with the post office, letting postal workers help with basic care for elderly people, such as sending or writing mail, to great effect,” Wang said.
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