With the popular British pop song He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother in her mind, Chiang Mei-hui (姜美惠) visits Genesis Social Welfare’s Taipei Hospital every day to take care of her brother’s every need, in the hope that he will one day recover.
Chiang Wen-wu (姜文伍) used to work as a contract laborer painting lines on the road, but at about 2am on March 2 last year, he was hit by a taxi in Taipei while at work.
The collision gave Chiang Wen-wu an intracerebral hemorrhage and hydrocephalus — the accumulation of fluid in brain cavities, causing increased intracranial pressure — which caused him to lapse into a persistent vegetative state.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The taxi driver had only appeared in court once before he was beaten to death by gangsters collecting debt. When the taxi driver died, so too did Chiang Wen-wu’s chances of financial compensation.
Chiang Mei-hui said that at first she found it impossible to accept her brother could be in such a state, but over time she came to accept this new reality.
DILIGENT CARE
After she finishes her domestic duties at noon each day, she makes the hour-long journey to the hospital, where she massages her brother’s limbs to make sure his muscles do not atrophy from lack of use.
Every joint has to be flexed 100 times and her brother has to be flipped on his side every two hours, Chiang Mei-hui said, adding that she uses a machine to suck out the phlegm that accumulates in his throat.
Chiang Hui-mei weighs only 40kg, but she nonetheless helps her brother — 170cm tall and weighing 60kg — keep in shape. Despite the chronic aches she suffers from the hours she spent caring for her brother, she feels it is worth it.
She reasons that “if one day he wakes up and finds that his limbs have become malformed, he would be depressed. I need to keep it up so that when he does wake up he will still be his old self.”
Chiang Mei-hui has also attempted to revive her brother using various methods, such as cellphone ring tones, handheld consoles and toys.
All the hard work appears to be having some impact. Chiang Wen-wu was originally only able to open one eye, but is now able to open both and follow the nurses around the room, Chiang Mei-hui said.
When they celebrated his birthday in November last year, he even smiled when a nurse said that it was strange to sing Happy Birthday in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese).
Chiang Mei-hui said she shouldered the task of caring for her brother because although she is married, she does not have children and that as the seventh in a family of eight children, she felt obliged to care for her brother, who was the fifth child.
“If I’m absent for even one day, I can’t live with myself. Besides, my presence gives my 80-year-old parents peace of mind,” Chiang Mei-hui said.
ONE YEAR
Last Friday marked one year since Chiang Wen-wu’s accident. The Genesis foundation sent Chiang Mei-hui a bouquet of flowers, which she gave to her brother.
Chiang Mei-hui also brought along a family album and quizzed her brother on who was who. Despite Chiang Wen-wu’s silence she did her best — she even made fun of him when he dozed off, saying: “You’re being impolite with so many people watching.”
Chiang Mei-hui’s dedication to her brother has also moved hospital staff.
Hospital director Kuo Yu-chu (郭玉竹) said it was very heart-warming that “she comes every day, even on her off-days, and stays for more than 10 hours each time, all year long.”
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,