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.
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