Having served as a midwife for more than 40 years, Lin Tien Ya-yi (林田雅意), who died on July 15 at age 94, is fondly remembered by residents of Pingtung County’s Wanluan Township (萬巒).
Lin Tien had a hand in the delivery of more than 95 percent of the township’s adults now aged 45 and above, local records show.
During most of her working life, she was the only government-certified midwife in Wanluan.
Local residents remember with gratitude her dedication to her job, saying she would head out to deliver babies be it early in the day or late at night.
Lin Tien was born in Tainan in 1922. Because her family had many children, she was given up for adoption when she was five. Her adopted mother was a midwife who trained at the Taiwan Sotofuku Taipei Hospital (which later became the National Taiwan University Hospital) during the Japanese colonial era.
As a child, Lin Tien learned from watching her mother at work. At 16, she attended the Taichung Midwife Training School to obtain her professional certification and moved to Pingtung when she got married at 20 to Lin Ta-yun (林達雲), who was from Wanluan.
Her son, Lin Chun-yuan (林春源), recounted how his mother provided medical care for pregnant women and assisted in their deliveries.
“She also bought milk powder, towels and other baby care items for the mothers. She did this using her own money because most of the rural families were poor at the time,” he said.
He added that his mother also cooked chicken soup with sesame oil — a traditional fare — to help the mothers recuperate during their month-long postpartum care period.
“She said her mother had taught her to dedicate her service to people. So whenever somebody knocked on the door asking for assistance, my mother never refused them. She would just head out to help deliver babies, no matter how far it was or how late the hour,” he said.
Lin said his mother was so committed to her work and servicing the community that she often had to walk through narrow trails across paddy fields, and even helped deliver a baby only three days after having given birth herself.
Lin added that the first baby his mother delivered in Wanluan is now 70 years old.
Aside from her own work, Lin Tien also joined the local government’s midwifery medical team at the Wanluan Township Health Clinic in 1952 and headed the local publicity campaign for family planning programs.
She continued working as a midwife in the 1970s and only retired as the nation’s social and medical conditions improved and better health service facilities became available.
Wanluan Township Mayor Lin Pi-chien (林碧乾) said most people called Lin Tien “Aunt A-ta,” taking the first name of her husband Lin Ta-yun.
“Because Aunt A-ta was the first in the township to apply professional health training and knowledge, such as the need for cleaning and disinfection, she greatly improved the survival rate of babies and mothers in our township,” said Lin Pi-chien, who also came into this world with the aid of Lin Tien.
He added that for numerous local families, two successive generation of babies were delivered with Lin Tien’s assistance.
“Local records show that Aunt A-ta delivered close to 10,000 babies, which is why she is a venerated figure in Wanluan. Local residents fondly remember her many good deeds and dedication to service,” he added.
Lin Tien’s funeral is to be held this weekend at Wanluan.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching