Tzu Chi Medical Mission 11/14/10

This morning i woke up at 4am, showered and was ready to leave my house and go to manila at 4:30. I got on the car, and passed out because I had 3 hours of sleep. I was worried of Armand because he was not replying to my texts and didn't even call me nor text me. I gave him a call and he finally picked up, that guy always make people worry about him, but in the end shows up and still gets his job done.

So we arrived at the Tzu Chi Great Love Campus in Manila at around 7:30, we registered and Armand arrived shortly after getting lost with the way. We were toured by one of the committee member of the Tzu Chi foundation, she showed us where each department were, PEDIA, General Medicine, Surgery, Dental, then where the rest station, CR were. So we chilled a bit and at around 9o'clock patients started coming in, and we starting getting busy. We were put in the same section(because we requested it, hahaha) in the general medicine section. There were three main rooms there, the patient waiting room(limited to 50 people at a time), the clinic(limited to 10 people at most), and the dispensary room, where patients bring their prescription to to get their medicine. Armand was put in the dispensary room, he's job was to receive the prescriptions of patients and call out the number/names of patients once their medication have been prepared and ready to be distributed. I was put in the clinic with Anny Tien(A former brent student, who now studies in Ateneo), job there was easy, it was a nice air-conditioned room, and we just assist patients where to go, and assist doctors if they need any sort of help. In the clinic were around 10 doctors, 7 general medicine doctors, 2 OB-GNYNE/general medicine doctors, 1 dermatologist, and 2 people who measure blood pressure. Job there was pretty easy, didn't do much, but i just had a thought. For a moment, i thought, gee, these doctors are heroes, they save   lives, their life are successful, not because they're well off, but because their job is to help people, personally i want to be a doctor myself, and that inspired me a bit more.  30 minutes later, i was told to go help out the dispensary room, and from then on i was there till the end of everything... and that isn't anything good. THE DISPENSARY ROOM WAS CHAOTIC AND WAS LITERALLY HELL ON EARTH! okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but it was CROWDED and people complaining EVERYWHERE! PEOPLE WERE SPEAKING TO ME IN SOMETHING I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND AT ALL! One of the committee told Armand not to let me take over his job(call out names to distribute medicine), because i was dumb and i couldnt speak tagalog or anything. Combining to the hot weather and chaotic situation, was so pissed, i mean i was only trying to help... But i let it go! At around 11o'clock we had about an hour of lunch break. After that we had around 100 more patients, it was at around 1:30 until there were no more patients. 

Some learning outcomes and thoughts:

First of all, i was really touched sincerely touched since the beginning when we entered the campus, specifically me, because unlike Armand, I had an idea and a basic background of the Tzu Chi Foundation, because i am a member myself, i donate 100 pesos a month, and because this Organization was established in my home country in Taiwan, I had a sense of pride in me, knowing how much help and support they give to the ones in need. I've always knew, but it felt completely different when your actually there yourself, you can actually feel the warm environment. And that was impacted me a lot. The doctors and committees there were mostly Chinese-Filipino and some Taiwanese, it was so heart warming seeing different nationalities helping each other. And making that happen is the best thing that one can actually have, its priceless. Maybe not during the process but really, in the end, you feel great about yourself, even though my job was just sooo so so small. 

Almost everywhere in the campus, on the walls, there were aphorisms. I read all of them, and one of them especially hit me, "A person's happiness stems not from how much he owns but from how little he complains." After all, isn't happiness what we all strive for? You don't need to necessarily have anything in particular to achieve happiness, it's just all in your mind. Often times we do things to impress people, and to seek attention so that we can feel good about ourselves. so..."Let us compete compete on who is more loving, not on who is more feared."

This is DEFINITELY a worthwhile experience, even though some parts were frustrating, but its the journey of coming out of that frustration that you really achieve something and can be deeply happy about. 

In addition to this, I learned something else....

GAMOT PO? WAIT LANG DITO! HAHAHAHA :D

tzu chi - create a slideshow with music