A team of eleven medical professionals from the Mennonite Christian hospital on the eastern coast of Taiwan are in Belize as medical volunteers providing primary medical care to Belize’s hurricane victims.
The team is assisted by Dr. Jose Moguel of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, who volunteered to act as a local liaison for the team. The team first visited San Narciso Village where they attended to some 137 patients on Tuesday, then on Wednesday they visited Patchakan village, where the doctors saw another 168 patients. On Thursday, they traveled to Caledonia village, where by midday they had seen over 150 patients. On Friday they travel to San Antonio Village, as they continue their medical mission of mercy.
Dr W. Luke Huang, the paediatrician and head of mission, told Reporter they had seen and treated mostly cases of allergies, skin disorders, colds and asthma. He said that while their primary mission is to deliver medical care to those in need, they are also exchanging medical experience with the doctors at the hospitals they visit. The team includes a number of different specialists including a cardiologist, a neurologist, two surgeons, a dentist, a doctor’s assistant, a nurse, a pharmacist, a secretary to keep records and a medical engineer to repair any equipment which may have been damaged by the hurricane.
The team returned to the K.H.M.H. on Saturday, where they rendered any assistance they might have had over the weekend, before traveling to continue their mission in the Toledo district on Monday. They will provide similar assistance to villages in that district, but the precise villages will be determined by need, after consultation with the doctors at Southern Regional.
Erica Lee, a spokesperson from the Taiwanese embassy who accompanied the mission in the field, told Reporter this mission is part of the implementation of a memorandum of understanding between Belize and Taiwan on avian flu. The medical team’s visit is a follow-up to a medical team which visited Belize last year to assess Belize’s medical care needs. A result of that visit was the donation of a 40-foot container of equipment, some of which was given to the K.H.M.H. and the lion’s share went to the Western Regional Hospital which had developed a sister hospital relationship with the hospital in Taiwan. As a result of this medical cooperation, the six Belizean doctors have been chosen to further their studies in Taiwan, three from the Western Regional Hospital, two from the K.H.M.H. and one from the Southern Regional Hospital.
Cheng–Hsiung Lin, the head of the Taiwan Technical Mission at Central Farm also accompanied the team, as he was also assessing how Taiwan might help the region’s small farmers’ economic recovery from the impact of Hurricane Dean.  Read More

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