Mackay Memorial Hospital is preparing to send a second team of volunteer medical professionals on a humanitarian mission to Ukraine in September, where they would offer medical consultations in rural areas.
Tsai Wei-de (蔡維德), director of the hospital’s International Medical Service Center, who led the first team to Ukraine in April, on Saturday said that, during their visit, the second team would sign a memorandum of understanding with St Martin’s Hospital in Mukachevo, a city in western Ukraine.
The seven-member team would offer free consultations at mobile healthcare units in rural areas from Sept. 11 to 19, Tsai said in a telephone interview.
Photo courtesy of MacKay Memorial Hospital
The specific locations would only be disclosed by his Ukrainian counterpart four weeks before the team’s departure, due to the unpredictability of the war zone, he said.
The Taiwan Christian Medical Association (TCMA), in collaboration with Mackay, had just applied for funding from the government to establish a specialized burn treatment center in Ukraine, TCMA physician Chern Herng-der (陳恆德), who also participated in the hospital’s first mission to Ukraine, said on Saturday.
Burns are particularly common during war, Chern said at a TCMA gathering in Taipei.
Reflecting on his experience in Ukraine, Tsai Hsun-tien (蔡循典), an otolaryngologist at Mackay, said that the sound of air sirens during the first mission made him question his own determination and preparedness if a war were to break out in Taiwan.
He said he contemplated what he would bring if he had only three minutes to pack, and what kind of emergency services he could provide in a military conflict.
Tsai Hsun-tien shared his thoughts on what he would say to his loved ones and the encouraging words he would share with his son in such extreme circumstances.
Encouraging young doctors to participate in overseas humanitarian missions, he said that the dignity and aspirations demonstrated by Ukrainians during wartime have been a great inspiration to him.
“It reminded me of why I wanted to become a doctor in the first place,” Tsai Hsun-tien said.
Mackay’s first volunteer team was the first medical support group from Taiwan to provide assistance in Ukraine after the war broke out in February last year.
During the April missions in Mukachevo and Lviv, the Mackay team offered free consultations at mobile healthcare units, assisted local physicians in performing surgical operations at hospitals, conducted educational activities and offered psychological support to severely traumatized people, the hospital said.
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