Expectant parents in Hualien place their faith in Mennonite Christian Hospital

2018/01/08

While Taiwan faces a shortage of obstetricians nationwide, the problem is especially acute in the eastern and southeastern counties of Hualien and Taitung, respectively. In Hualien, about 75 percent of babies are delivered by the three obstetricians at Mennonite Christian Hospital. Yet the Hualien City-based medical institution’s popularity among pregnant women is not simply a reflection of the lack of available OB-GYNs, but a measure of the high regard in which it is held by locals, who in a recent survey named it the best hospital in the region.
 
 Liao Chi-yuan, the 67-year-old director of MCH’s Obstetrics Department, has worked at the hospital for more than three decades and delivered more babies than any other doctor in the eastern region of Taiwan. The obstetrician regularly meets children he delivered while walking on the street. He even delivered some of the staff at MCH and is now helping a number of them through their pregnancies.
 
 Although Liao has reached retirement age, he is still passionate about his work. Always on standby, he is often woken up in the middle of the night when a patient goes into labor, and even cuts short scheduled trips to get back to MCH for a delivery. This devotion earned him a Medical Contribution Award from the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2015.
 
 Owing to the increasing frequency of legal disputes over medical treatment, some local clinics only provide prenatal checkup services and refer women to MCH for delivery. After having their first child at MCH, many women chose to return to the hospital during their subsequent pregnancies. Often the delivery room is fully booked, with doctors handling one birth after another.
 
“My hope is that the hospital could have five obstetricians, but to date we have been unable to recruit this number,” said MCH Superintendent Wu Chiang-liang. The current 30-member team led by Liao manages to meet local demand. Despite declining birthrates nationwide, staff members at MCH still deliver an average of 162 babies a month—more than major national medical institutions—with the record reaching 200.
 
 MCH is also a popular destination for child vaccinations. Wu said that in the past little attention was paid to public health in Taiwan. In the 1940s, before the founding of MCH, a group of missionaries and health care personnel brought medicine, canned food and milk on modified military trucks to tribes in Hualien and Taitung with the goal of improving the health of local women and children. These were the first medical professionals in Taiwan to provide services in remote mountain areas.
 
 When MCH was established in the 1950s, missionaries started working there to help deliver babies. As its reputation grew through word of mouth, the hospital attracted more and more pregnant women until it became the major birthing center in eastern Taiwan.
 
 Over the past decades, MCH has carried on this tradition, making high-quality medical treatment for pregnant women and children a core focus of its health care services. In 1991, it became the first hospital in Hualien or Taitung to adopt laparoscopy and in 2001 was the first institution in the region certified by the Department of Health, later reorganized as the MOHW, as a mother and baby-friendly hospital.
 
 Obstetrics aside, MCH has other strong suits. The hospital specializes in developing customized prosthetic and orthotic devices for patients who have lost limbs or suffer from various types of paralysis. These services are targeted at people of all ages who have experienced traumatic injuries in car accidents, on construction sites or in other situations, as well as elderly or infirm patients who are losing mobility.
 
 Yang Hsu-nan, MCH vice superintendent, noted that in 2010 the hospital collaborated with National Taiwan University’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering to establish its Orthotic and Prosthetic Services division, the first of its kind in Taiwan. This unit has solicited assistance from licensed U.S. experts in the field who help make practical and durable devices. It has even developed prosthetic limbs for sports, such as running blades.
 
 In addition to prosthetic limbs, OPS also designs custom insoles that help patients with spinal injuries, strokes, scoliosis, cerebral palsy or flat feet regain confidence and mobility. In recent years, Yang has traveled to Taitung every month to assist patients in need of such aids.
 
 In view of Taiwan’s rapidly aging society, MCH plans in 2019 to open a nursing home and day care center for elderly dementia patients at its branch in Hualien’s Shoufeng Township. To provide comprehensive services to seniors, departments of dentistry and psychiatry as well as a dialysis treatment center will also be launched at the location.
 
 Following its establishment, MCH initially focused on caring for populations living in low-lying areas before expanding services to indigenous tribal villages deep in the mountains. Today, its workers are still seen touring remote regions of Hualien like Wanrong and Zhuoxi townships. They sometimes cross over to villages in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County, demonstrating MCH staff members’ enduring passion for saving lives and serving communities.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=11&post=127553)