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Path：Gratitude>Taitung Christian Hospital |
Dr. Frank Dennis（1926~）
◆Settled in the Seaside Village
The young couple, Dr. and Mrs. Dennis.
Dr. Frank Dennis was born in a happy Christian family in Colorado, the US. He made a wish at his youth that someday in the future he would be a doctor, who could cure the people and save the lives. During the years of studying in medical school, he met Lisa, who was studying in Public Health, becoming his wife later. They both determined to consecrate themselves to the poverty in underdeveloped area after they built their expertise.
On the years of medical treating for children with polio, it was about three hundred got cured.
After Dr. Dennis graduated from medical school, Dr. Dennis and his wife Lisa both chose to go to a hospital, the one which especially served the low-income in Arizona. Afterwards, they applied to their belonging Church with a hope that the Church might arrange them to go to the backward Africa to take care of patients over there.
Doing medical services under
the scorching sun.
While the couple were planning to leave for Africa, unexpectedly, a letter from Taiwan changed their mind. When The Dennis family of six arrived to Taiwan, they firstly stayed in Taipei in order to learn Chinese for one year, and then they hastened to Taitung on east coast in Taiwan. During the 1960s, Taiwan struggled with substance deprivation together with diseases, such as tuberculosis, polio, parasites, malnutrition, and many others. Whereas the lack of medical resources caused people’s suffering in Taitung, Dr. Dennis actively constituted a mountain mobile medical team and established a clinic alongside of coastal mountain, working with the nurse Ms. Doris for medical service.
The Dennis family.
For the villagers are mainly natives of Taiwan, Dr. Dennis studied the language of the A-mei tribe so as to communicate with the patients in order to give the right treatment according to patients’ condition. Not only medical services, Dr. Dennis also concerned about their lives. He often gave out his measly possessed money to patients to buy nutritional supplements or cover their living expenses. When Dr. Dennis's four children grew up, inspired by their parents’ deeds, all of them stepped on the same path of medical missions in the remote area in Indonesia, Mexico, and Shanxi Province in China.
Two hundred children with polio were waiting in line for operation.
◆Comforting the Weeping, Healing the Wounded
For the shabby clinic without facilities for surgical operation, Dr. Dennis, with Lisa’s aid, sent hundreds of letters to the North America to ask for help. He even personally flied back to the United States to visit many churches for the hospital fundraising.
Job offers to the natives.
Finally in 1969, Taitung Christian Hospital was established. When the hospital began operating, Dr. Dennis’s job not only was a physician but also a teacher to train medical personnel.
The imported electrotherapy of“snake gun” and Bee sting therapy to those who were bitten by snakes .
Whenever the hospital needed medical facilities, he went back to the US by using his own money and promoted donation. He often arranged the shipment of the discharged facilities in the US to Taiwan to fulfill the patients’ benefits. Dr. Dennis was often too busy to have meals. Sometimes, he would stay up for as long as 48 hours.
◆The most impoverished and most affluent doctor in Taiwan
Dr. Dennis received Order of Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon.
In 1993, because of Dr. Dennis’s righteous deeds, he won the third Medical Contribution Award. In September of the following year, he received the Order of Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon from the former President Lee Teng-hui. For the past 33 years in Taiwan, Dr. Dennis never received salary from the hospital, but only obtained meager income from the church's donation in the US.
Dr. and Mrs. Dennis consecrated for 33 years in Taiwan.
When their children were grown up, they one after another returned back to the US to attend colleges. They even took turns to go to their children’s graduation commencement for the reason of saving money.In 1994, the couple retired and irresistibly returned to their home country. Every Christmas time, colleagues in Taitung Christian Hospital would receive the letters from Dr. Dennis in which there were a bunch of expectations and exhortatory in addition to general greetings.
Taitung Christian Hospital after renovation.
What Dr. Dennis always kept in mind was that the facilities in the old hospital building have been outdated in the use of three decades and the renovation should have been in urgent need. Hence, Taitung Christian Hospital initiated the hospital expansion construction in the supervision of the next president Dr. Hsin-hsiung Lyue.
References :
Taitung Christian Hospital http://www.tch.org.tw/tch/02/02.htm
Image Sources :
Taitung Christian Hospital
http://www.tch.org.tw/tch/02/02.htm
http://www.tch.org.tw/tch/02/02_main_1_2.php
http://www.tch.org.tw/tch/01/01.htm
Good TV http://www.goodtv.com.tw
Taitung County Government Education Department: http://nc.boe.ttct.edu.tw/infoapp/1214/mlps03/index-1.htm
Liberty Times http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2009/new/jun/25/today-south12.htm
