Hoping both to repay the Saint Mary’s Hospital in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東) for its dedicated services to the poor and disadvantaged in the region and to strengthen the hospital’s resolve to help, a local elementary-school teacher, Chen Su-ling (陳素玲), has dedicated one of her recently donated two mobile clinic vans to the hospital.
Saint Mary’s Hospital has always been a non-profit establishment and has always helped poor residents without charging — at most writing a receipt for a loan, Chen said, adding that the hospital has a standing practice of burning the loan receipts after five years.
“My family has seven children. My father sells pork and my mother washes laundry,” Chen said, adding that the family’s financial hardships forced her parents to consider giving up one of her elder sisters for adoption.
The decision was rejected only after firm opposition from all of her sisters, Chen, 47, said.
In farming villages in Taiwan’s earlier periods of development, medication and drugs were usually provided by local pharmacies and drug shops in packets with fees collected on a monthly basis, Chen said.
Local drug stores stopped giving her family medicine due to fears of being unable to recoup the money, Chen said, adding that it was a concern every time someone became sick.
Chen said that before her mother passed away, she would say fate brought the family into contact with Saint Mary’s Hospital.
When one of Chen’s sisters had a fever, her parents took her — by bicycle — to Saint Mary’s Hospital, 10km from their home, hoping that physicians would help treat her, even though they had no money, Chen said.
The hospital had immediately treated her sister, Chen said.
“While giving us a receipt indicating the loan our family owed the hospital, they later burned it,” Chen said, adding that the practice has gone on for years.
“The entirely family is very grateful to the hospital for taking care of us when we were sick,” Chen said.
Chen decided that she would one day emulate the hospital’s spirit.
Chen started saving money in a Chunghwa Post Co account six years ago in a set-amount valued policy, she said.
This year, she accumulated NT$1 million (US$32,154) and intended to buy two mobile clinic vans to donate to social welfare.
However, even after the seller discounted the cost of the two vans from NT$1.1 million, she was still short NT$30,000, Chen said.
Chen’s daughter, Yang Tzu-yun (楊子筠), a third-year student studying at Tamkang University, “slipped” her NT$30,000 she had saved from working.
Chen said she found her daughter’s understanding nature very moving.
The vans were donated to Saint Mary’s Hospital and the St Camillus Hospital in Penghu.
During a ceremony marking the donations on Thursday last week, Chen said her dream was actually to donate an ambulance, but the mobile clinics would serve as a “temporary placeholder” while she hopes to donate more in the future.
Chen said she wanted to give back to the Saint Mary’s Hospital and expressed hope that the hospital would continue to uphold its practice of helping poor and disadvantaged residents without thoughts of profits.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS