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| 2013/07/19 15:56:32瀏覽476｜回應3｜推薦4 | |
At the end of the first day, I couldn't stop wondering how did organisers D and C, knowing little about me, place me in the perhaps most suitable position among this 50-strong June-2013 medical team in China: pharmacy. I am just an ordinary homemaker, no medical training, no professional background, a down-to-earth mum. I got short memory, couldn't even remember where I put my glasses one minute ago! But the pretty young girls from Beijing and Hawaii were so quick to jump to the right bin - over a dozen of them stacked up or spread in the storage room, and dig out the right pills - we had millions of them! My job was simple: call out the patient's name, verify the registration number, double check the prescription, explain the dosage, demonstrate or enforce the medication, and dispense free vitamins. I loved the last one and so did all patients!
Above all, I enjoy the short exchange of conversation with each one of them. Face to face, I have never come so close to so many Chinese farmers in my life. These are my people - my father, grandfather and hundreds of ancestors up the stream, were all farmers. They carry similar physical marks: tanned dark skins, deep cut furrows of wrinkles, soiled fingers, swollen knuckles, smoke-stained teeth, mumbled words and country accents. One young man would stand by the pharmacy window and translate mandarin into local dialect. Otherwise, they would not understand me. About midweek, I suddenly picked up the tone and started to chat with patients in their accent. Once converted and immersed in local language, I fell into their world: life-long struggle in the poorest deserted arid land, forever short of water, isolated from other parts of the world. It's impossible to ask them to take a shower every day. It's silly to bid them to wash hands regularly. There's no running water, no flush toilet either! Yet how I admire those humble smiles of optimism, shy glimpses of perseverance and unstoppable tenacity!
By words of mouth, some walked up 20 km to reach this free clinic. Many had not seen a doctor for years as they couldn't afford it. Local hospitals or clinics, though state-run, are profit centred nowadays. There is no free consultation or treatment even for the poor. Quite a few fainted while waiting under the ruthless sun due to lack of food or dehydration. Once a dentist rushed to the pharmacy in search of glucose as his patient went blacked out during a tooth extraction.
Since many patients had hypertension symptom or cardiac problems, I invented my personal evangelism, not in the context of religion as we were warned not to, rather in preaching healthy diet and personal hygiene. Most were common knowledge I gathered from years of looking after my family or just bits and pieces collected from internet such as cutting back intake of excessive salt or oil, drink more fluid and veges (kind of ironic to promote in a parched land), quit smoking, etc. Well, I don't know how many would be convinced (or saved) by my sermon, but I guess luckier than that beheaded John leaving a voice in the wilderness, I kept my head back and believed I had fought a worthy fight!
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| ( 休閒生活｜旅人手札 ) |
