AIDS Patients Need our Sympathy and Support！2012-06-05
AIDS Patients Need our Sympathy and Support！
Urgent appeal for the HIV-Infected from a German Citizen.
CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY ONLINE (CNA) - News
Press Release of the Series: Voluntary Service in Taiwan. Taipei, May 12, 2012.
Long Ruiyun 龙瑞云
Work, Sports, Arts, and Volunteering
Chris Merkelbach, called Uncle Chris, comes from Germany. He has launched an AIDS-helpline in Germany, shows great sympathy for HIV-infected individuals, and is actively promoting human rights of those infected with the virus. Since coming to Taiwan, he has been active with Harmony Home.
From Aachen, Germany, 46-year-old Chris Merkelbach (Hé Rènyuǎn 何任远) has lived for over 20 years in Taiwan and is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University. He has worked as a volunteer at the Harmony Home Association Taiwan for about six years.
As early as at the age of 18, when Chris Merkelbach did his civil service in a German hospital, he has shown a great interest and enthusiasm for nursing work and even did vocational training as a nurse. Later, while studying at college in Educational Science, Linguistics and Sinology at Humboldt University in Berlin, he worked part-time as a nurse in a German hospital.
Surviving Cancer and Becomes a Volunteer
Chris Merkelbach came to Taiwan in 1992 and pursued a career in teaching German language, culture, and teaching methodology. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer in 2000, which was treated at the National Taiwan University’s Hospital (NTUH) in Taipei. He was impressed by the warm, loving, and nurturing care of the medical team, nurses and aid workers there, particularly by the volunteer service and at that time firmly decided to give back what he received to other people after being discharged from the hospital.
I am a Taiwanese!
Chris Merkelbach impressed me as a very warm, kind, and friendly person. As he always says he considers himself a Taiwanese and not as a foreigner. Although he appears to be foreign, his thoughts and heart had become Taiwanese. Pointing to his belly, he says jokingly that this is the success of many years of good Taiwanese food.
Over 30 years Serving in the AIDS Field
Chris Merkelbach spoke of a time during his civil service that an HIV-infected person who also suffered from lung cancer was admitted to the hospital. Many of the medical team and the nurses did not quite know how to care for and assist this patient. Given the then existing knowledge and prevailing opinion, there were considerable reservations. After a short period of treatment the patient unfortunately died. In order to provide better assistance to other infected people, Chris Merkelbach, together with his friends set up an AIDS-help hotline, which is still active under the roof of the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe.
From Helping to Organizing
After Chris Merkelbach returned from Europe in 2006 after a research trip and returned to Taiwan, he noted that Harmony Home had moved to the Wen-Shan District of Taipei. He learned from the newspaper about the circumstances, e.g. that an infected child was expelled from school (The Case of Jiajia), which shocked him very much.
Chris Merkelbach, who had started long ago in Germany to care for AIDS patients, hopes that a corresponding adjustment in Taiwan will take place. Just recently he has written a brochure about AIDS, which will be distributed after its publication to teachers of Taiwanese elementary and middle schools. He hopes to deliver the material in an easily understandable form on how to deal with HIV-infected children and emphasized: "The right of all children to obtain education must be protected."
This is not the only reason Chris Merkelbach works at Harmony Home once or twice a week, he also takes the opportunity to provide NTU students the knowledge to prevent HIV-infection and how to help AIDS sufferers. He said some colleagues, students, or the students’ parents, that deal with such or similar problems have spoken with him directly, exchanged ideas, or share experiences. There are also students who go to Harmony Home to volunteer, and try to mobilize funds.
So now there is great hope to achieve more rights for people living with HIV. But while in Europe or the U.S. the attitude towards HIV-infected foreign residents is characterized by tolerance and forbearance, so that they can seek treatment anywhere, in Taiwan a very different attitude still persist, in such a way that only locals can receive a treatment, whereas infected foreigners regularly are expelled, with the sad conclusion that HIV-carriers with a foreign nationality in many cases dare not to consult a doctor to get treatment so that the disease often takes a fatal course .
Chris Merkelbach further elaborates that today's Taiwanese society attitude towards HIV-infected patients is similar to the one which was common abroad 30 years ago. Since that time, outside Taiwan's special nursing homes for the care and treatment of AIDS patients have been established. In Taiwan, where the life expectancy [of HIV-carriers] gradually is increasing, there is in the long run also a high demand for such facilities. At the same time, the attitude of the Taiwanese society should be more characterized by tolerance and openness, and some legal deficiencies should be corrected by amendment.
Chris Merkelbach’s parents taught as a child, "If you don’t do it, nobody else will." To care for the sick is natural for him. In his childhood he took care of his autistic and hearing impaired older brother. His father established a service center for the hearing impaired, and his mother was committed to the rights and interests of workers. Growing up in such an environment, standing up for the interests and needs of others is in his blood.
He thus considered doing volunteer work as a natural way to help. At Harmony Home, there are many people from Taiwan and abroad doing voluntary service. Different cultures unite and the mutual exchange and integration of diverse interests and ideas meet and often lead to joy and happiness. This helps you forget for the moment the disease, and the sense of community and togetherness is doing much to improve the welfare and condition.
For the volunteers, there is no difference between rich and poor, high and low. All are equal, and there are no class distinctions. Chris Merkelbach repeatedly emphasized that the volunteers can contribute very much to the harmony of society, by contributing according to their individual interests and abilities to help others and bring in their care and a loving heart in the community. All have volunteered completely free of choice. Every volunteer at Harmony Home knows what to do and what is needed. "I am a professor," he says, "but I can also help clean the bathroom and the toilet; this is also a contribution which needs to be done."
He met with the pleasure the four life tasks taught by his parents include the following: work, sports, arts, and volunteering. For this he says: "I like my profession a lot, I love to do sports, sing with enthusiasm, play the cello with pleasure, and find fulfillment and satisfaction in volunteering. Although I am 46 years old, I feel no mid-life crisis and I find happiness every day in my work and my volunteer work. "
