In my job as a neurologist, I usually see elderly and disabled patients. On many occasions, I have witnessed how patients and their family members treat their foreign caregivers with disrespect.
When I ask about a patient’s home situation, accompanying family members often give irrelevant or unclear answers. When I turn to the foreign caregiver who looks after the patient day and night, they often look at the family members first, and then give a timid answer.
It is often the case that the information they provide is very helpful in forming a diagnosis, because they are the key people when it comes to the patient’s care.
Unfortunately, they do not seem to have the respect of family members or the people they care for.
I have always felt that what medical professionals can do to help elderly and disabled people is limited — the people with the real ability to affect their quality of life are the foreign carers, who look after them in their home 24 hours a day.
Sometimes, when a patient leaves the clinic, I cannot help thanking the hardworking caregiver in front of the patient’s family member for their conscientious care, and saying that the patient looks much better than last time.
Unfortunately, the language barrier means that the caregivers sometimes do not really understand what I say, but they seem to be pleasantly surprised by the expression in my eyes and my smile.
A few years ago, music professor Tseng Dau-hsiong (曾道雄), a good friend of mine, wrote an article titled “Angels from the equator” for the electronic newsletter Platform of Doctors and Patients (醫病平台), which we initiated together.
The article talked about how much he appreciated the help of the family’s Indonesian caregiver.
In the article Tseng also made an angry call for justice, saying that some Taiwanese do not give due respect to their foreign caregivers, and that they even abuse them and do not treat them humanely.
Tseng told me that this caregiver had returned to her home country after her contract expired, married her fiancee of many years and become a mother.
The money she had saved during her hard work in Taiwan enabled her to have her own house and support her younger brother’s studies, he said, adding that she lives a happy life.
This reminded me of an article by Ti Jen-hua (狄仁華) — the pen name of Don Baron, a former student from the US in Taiwan — entitled “Humanity and virtue” that was published in the Chinese-language Central Daily News in 1963 when I was still a university student.
The article, which criticized Taiwanese for their selfish disregard of strangers, inspired profound introspection, and even caused an uproar on university campuses.
Over the years, Taiwanese society has made great progress, with some saying that “Taiwan’s most beautiful scenery is its people.”
However, only when this improvement extends beyond how we treat foreign tourists in Taiwan to how we treat foreign caregivers working in our homes will we truly deserve this reputation.
Mahatma Gandhi once said: “The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.”
I want to use this sentence to encourage Taiwanese to respect and treat foreigners who care for our family members. It is thanks to their dedication that we can have peace of mind when we go to work, study and travel.
Lai Chi-wan is a doctor.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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