Wu Hsi-chiao fully understands the distress that people go through when looking after seriously ill family members. Illness can be tormenting, but the torment can be worsened by a family's financial situation. By recycling secondhand medical equipment, he helps reduce the financial burdens on patients' families and lengthens the usefulness of the equipment.

Early in the morning, Wu Hsi-chiao leaves his home in Hsinchuang, Taipei County, and drives a Tzu Chi recycling truck to Yangming Mountain in Taipei City. On Yangming Mountain, populated by the rich and powerful, all he sees are mansions and tourists. Because he is not familiar with the vicinity, it takes him a long time to find his destination. He stops in front of a grocery store. A woman waves at him, and after greeting each other they walk upstairs to the second floor.

The woman's mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital a year ago. Since her sickbed, suction machine, disposable diapers, and walking aids have been left unused for a long time, the woman hopes that Tzu Chi can put them to better use. Other Tzu Chi volunteers contacted Wu, who has been recycling secondhand medical equipment for a long time and is quite well-known in the foundation, and asked him to pick up the equipment.

The sickbed is so heavy that a single man cannot move it. The mattress and the feet of the bed have to be removed first to get the bed through the door. Wu finds a helper and together they take a long time moving the bed: whenever they come to a turn on the stairway, they have to turn the bed up or down in order to move it. When the bed is finally loaded onto the truck, the two of them are sweating heavily.

Wu starts the truck and heads down the road to the home of another family who will be donating some medical equipment to Tzu Chi.

Under the hot sun, Wu finds the community where the donor lives and walks towards the donor's home. In a short while, Wu reappears carefully pushing an expensive oxygen concentrator--a new one costs close to NT$80,000 [US$2,300].

Wu moves it onto the truck and ties it up with ropes so that it won't move around while the truck is in motion. He then goes back to pick up two portable oxygen tanks and a medical vaporizer.

When everything is loaded onto the truck, Wu has finished all the recycling work for the morning. Pointing to a bag of suction tubes, he explains, "Don't underestimate the value of those tubes. They cost NT$6 [US$0.18] each!" He points to the motor for the suction machine and says, "This tiny motor costs over NT$10,000 [US$300]!" He believes that the truck carries a load of valuable recyclable items that can save lots of money for those who need them.

On the way home, Wu stops in front of an old house and tells us that the old woman inside has been taking care of her husband for eight years. The hospital has referred them to Tzu Chi for assistance. Wu brought them an air mattress before; today he comes to see how they are doing.

Built with bricks and cement, the house has no windows and the interior is completely dark. The old man lies motionlessly on his stomach on the bed, wearing nothing but a disposable diaper. The old woman says that it is very hard to look after her husband. They receive a monthly low-income supplement of NT$6,000 [US$180], but the rent costs them NT$4,500 [US$135] a month. If her husband gets diarrhea, he may need his diaper changed six times a day, which is an enormous cost.

Whenever Wu drives past the area, he brings them diapers, cotton swabs, and gauze donated by other people. He has been recycling medical equipment for such a long time now that he knows quite well which families have special backgrounds or needs.

Taking care of everything

After six years of volunteering, Wu has become famous for his work in recycling medical equipment. Whenever Tzu Chi recycling volunteers pick up wheelchairs or walking aids or hear that someone has unused medical equipment at home, they call Wu to pick them up after work or on the weekends, and he delivers them to other people in need. Whenever volunteers visit needy families and notice that they require medical equipment, they also ask Wu to help.

For all these reasons, Wu has stored many goods at his home: medical sickbeds, air mattresses, oxygen concentrators, oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, walking sticks, suction machines, walking aids, toilet chairs, and so forth.

Land is very expensive in Taipei. Some people believe that medical equipment is dirty or brings bad luck, so it is hard for Wu to find places to store all the equipment. Currently, he stores equipment in four different cities, so he often has to toil between storing recycled equipment in one of the four places and delivering it to those who need it.

After collecting used medical equipment, he spends time in the evenings or on weekends to clean or fix it. If a machine is broken, he takes it apart, finds the problem, and either buys replacement parts or sends the machine for repair.

Wu studied electrical repair in college and worked as a motorcycle repairman. He now works in a lathe shop. He is very interested in taking things apart and repairing them, so he is good at finding out where problems lie. When he doesn't understand something, he asks an expert. He has become very knowledgeable about how the machines work.

In addition, he tries to buy the original replacements for screws or filters or tries to make these consumables usable again. He does this because it often costs thousands of dollars to have companies repair the machines.

Perfect service

Wu's devotion to recycling medical equipment stems from his personal experience in taking care of his father.

His father suffered a stroke six years ago and is completely paralyzed. Since then, Wu's mother and wife have had to take care of everything from feeding him through a nasogastric tube to changing his diaper. Wu remembers that they spent over NT$20,000 [US$600] to buy an air mattress. They also bought a can of nutriments every three days, which cost NT$450 per can, and disposable diapers every day. All these expenses became quite a burden.

Wu thus fully understands the distress that people go through in looking after seriously ill family members. Illness can be tormenting, but the torment can be worsened by a family's financial situation. Therefore, he decided to get involved in recycling and giving away used medical equipment.

Much medical equipment becomes useless after patients recover or pass away. It is a waste to throw the equipment away, but it also takes up space at home. Thus, it is better if other people who need the equipment can use it. Wu feels that if medical equipment can be recycled, it will help reduce the financial burdens of many patients' families and also extend the useful life of the equipment.

Many families with seriously ill or paralyzed patients tend to become poor because of the patients' conditions. Aside from lost income and medical fees, the families also have to pay for medical equipment, nutrients, disposable diapers, and other consumables. Some families even have to hire helpers to look after the patients. These families have to pay lots of money every month. The recycling of medical equipment can reduce the financial burdens of these households.

The respirators used by seriously ill patients can cost over NT$300,000 [US$9,017]. Wu once collected four of them and immediately gave them away to other people who needed them. An oxygen concentrator costs NT$40,000 [US$1,202]. Even the rent for an oxygen tank can cost NT$4,000 a month, and after a while the total amount of rent becomes enormous.

One patient suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, where the muscles slowly atrophy and become immobile. His wife looked after him, and after a long while they gradually used up all their money. An oxygen concentrator and a respirator cost NT$23,000 [US$691] a month in rent. After social workers at the hospital informed Tzu Chi about their case, Wu delivered two machines that helped the family save at least NT$500,000 [US$15,000] in two years.

One patient asked for help from Wu because of a problem with his oxygen concentrator. The patient wasn't rich, so Wu gave him a good machine, took the broken one back home, and fixed it.

Another family spent NT$40,000 on an oxygen concentrator for a family member; three months later, this patient died. The company that sold the machine offered to buy it back for NT$8,000 [US$240], but the family decided to donate it to Tzu Chi to help other people who might need it.

Wu points out that among all patients requiring medical equipment at home, at least 80 percent are stroke patients requiring long-term care. Many of these families want to donate the machines to Tzu Chi after the patients die, hoping that the machines can continue to be useful.

Variety, stockpiles, and social workers

Whenever Wu receives a call about a patient needing certain medical equipment, he hurries to get the machine ready and delivers it himself, or he tells the patient's family to pick it up from one of the storage rooms. When "business" is good, he often receives five calls or even sends out five sickbeds in one day.

Wu's "business" covers Taiwan, its offshore islands, China, and Indonesia. He uses the postal service or private express companies to deliver medical equipment to counties in southern Taiwan or offshore islands. He also drives to Keelong, Hsinchu, Miaoli, and other distant places to collect medical equipment.

Miss Fan, a social worker at a hospital in Taipei County, constantly contacts Wu because patients discharged from her hospital often require medical equipment at home. She points out that social workers at the hospital help patients purchase, rent, or borrow needed medical equipment free of charge. The hospital receives medical equipment donated by families who don't need it, but the equipment is often given away immediately because of high demand. Thus Wu, with his large stockpile and variety of equipment, provides important assistance to the social workers.

Miss Fan emphasizes that patients who need oxygen concentrators are ones who can't breathe in normal amounts of oxygen. If patients can't cough out phlegm, they need suction machines. If patients are unable to receive equipment to help them when they are discharged from hospitals, all the efforts the doctors have made for them are wasted. On the average, Miss Fan phones Wu at least once a week.

She feels that it is very hard to find anyone else like Wu who has stockpiled all kinds of medical equipment, including the sickbeds that many medical institutions don't want to deal with, and who is willing to deliver the equipment to people's homes. She is impressed that Wu does all this voluntarily and uses his free time to borrow trucks from other people to pick up and deliver medical equipment to people's homes.

Overcoming all difficulties

Up to now, Wu has fixed and delivered over 60 oxygen concentrators, over 300 sickbeds, hundreds of air mattresses, and any number of oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, walking aids, toilet chairs, and other items.

Wu admits that when he started recycling medical equipment, he encountered many difficulties. Some people wanted to donate their equipment but didn't know how. Wu even went to hospital wards and asked patients if they needed any medical equipment. Some would need certain goods but he wouldn't have them...

After some searching, he came in contact with hospital patient-discharge centers. Through the help of social workers and nurses, more and more people came to know Wu as a Tzu Chi volunteer and would tell him about individuals who needed help.

Even now, there are still difficulties. One time a man wanted to donate a sickbed, and Wu asked him apologetically to help him move the bed to his truck. The man said to him coldly, "I'm giving it to you, not selling it to you. Since it is so troublesome to move the bed, forget about it!"

Another time, Wu helped a family get all the needed equipment, but this family was concerned that Wu might be lying to them since the whole thing was free of charge. So this family later canceled their requests for goods. Some people are concerned that Wu might sell the goods and pocket the money, so they either demand that Wu write a letter stating that he won't sell the goods himself or that Tzu Chi issue receipts or certificates of acknowledgement. There are also people who demand that Wu give them the recipients' phone numbers so that they can contact the recipients first before donating the goods. Because of such cases, Wu keeps a notebook detailing the donors and recipients of each piece of medical equipment.

Just doing his job

Wu's recycling work is very complicated. He has to spend a long time on the road, and sometimes he is out all day long. Therefore, it is not easy for him to find people to help him. He doesn't have his own truck, so he has to borrow one from Tzu Chi environmental protection volunteers whenever he picks up or delivers goods. Recently, his recycling work has become so busy that he has to borrow trucks more often than he did in the past.

On the day he drove to Yangming Mountain, he had to return the truck to the environmental protection volunteers at noon so that their work wouldn't be affected.

Some people want to present awards to him or offer to buy a truck to thank him for everything he has done for all the patients. However, Wu is always humble and low-key because he feels that is the responsibility of a Tzu Chi volunteer.

After volunteering for six years, Wu has seen it all: aging, illness, and death. His notebook also records the number of deceased patients he has helped: there are more than 200 of them. He has seen young people paralyzed in car accidents. He now understands life better.

All in all, Wu feels he doesn't need many material goods in life; he is very frugal. His father still needs to be taken care of, and his job can support his family. Thus, he feels he is capable of doing Tzu Chi work and upholds the motto of "Do good deeds while you are healthy."

Before joining Tzu Chi, Wu had a beard and he drank and smoked. Moreover, he complained about everything. However, he has seen paralyzed patients, young and old. Some people have illnesses and some have been in accidents. Now he understands life better. He is grateful that he is healthy and can assist those in need. He is delighted to know that the medical equipment he delivers can relieve patients of their discomfort and decrease the burden on their families.

Now Wu firmly believes that one should urgently create more blessings and do more good deeds while one is still healthy.