INTI International University Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Club was established in June 2012. The club aims to be able to provide health care to those who are not able to do so due to financial difficulties. In addition, we would also like to increase the personal health awareness and provide alternative health care knowledge among these people through TCM

Up to now, charity care is one of the significance components of the club’s mission. In the previous years, the TCM club has constantly collaborated with external charity organizations such as Tzu Chi and Remedic Healthcare Foundation (RHF), to provide basic medical health care for the poor and the destitute as well as teaching them to improve their health. We also had collaborated with China Medical University (CMU) for the charity treatment events.

Our club strongly believes that everyone has the right to receive adequate medical care regardless of their social statusand should able to access medical assistance. As a matter of human dignity, everyone is entitled to health care. To that end, healthcare should be considered an essential building block for a healthy community. Sadly to say that through our regular visits to different places, there are still have low-income groupswho do not receive adequate healthcare.

We often meet frail elderly and bedridden patients who need financial support and help for medical attention. Meanwhile, despite the subsidy from the government, some patients are still not able to afford the escalated medical costs. As a result, these would lead to deterioration of health and quality of life

Health is always above everything else because unhealthy people couldn’t carry out their daily life as usual. It is my belief that through providing medical education as well as treatment to the needy, this allows them to take care of themselves when medical assistance is not available. Hence, we are eager to serve the communities.

The venue of this event will be in “Sekichan KHIND Company”. According to our survey, the communities in this area are mostly suffering from dampness syndrome such as Rheumatism. This is because due to their career mostly in Sekichan is regular contact with water such as fisherman, farmer. According to the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a person with regular contact with water and wind attach, this kinds of situation will be easily develop dampness in their body, the dampness easily to attack and accumulate in joint, muscle. In the long term periods, it will become serious and leads to serious pain in joint and muscle. In medical term, we named it as “Rheumatism “or “Rheumatic disorder”.

What is Rheumatism? Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a conditions causing chronic, often intermittent pain affecting the joints or connective tissue. This is also marked byinflammation and pain in the joints, muscles. The therapeutic interventions in such disorders is called rheumatology. This situation can be solved by using acupuncture technique.

We have learned the theory and practical applications of acupuncture. Acupuncture is very efficient in treating people who are experiencing Rheumatology pain such as joint pain, lumbar sprain, knee pain, headache and others. If acupuncture is applied together with the Chinese medicine, it will accelerate the recovery of the patients’ Rheumatology pain syndrome.

To ensure the care of this project will be divided into two stages:

Stage 1, the team will identify the needs of the community.Patients with Rheumatolog pain syndromewho are unable to afford medical treatment will be selected for the program. Besides providing acupuncture treatment and prescribing medicine on the spot there will be booths set up to explain and teach the public on the methods to differentiate body constitution , as well as train the public to applyacu-point pressing and basic tuina techniquesto relieveRheumatologypain syndromes. Distribution of booklets regarding acu-point pressing and basic tuina techniques to the communities will be done.An information corner will be set up so that more people can get the information.

At the same time, we will follow-up the condition of the particular patients, trace the level ofRheumatology pain after they practiced basic tuinatechnique. Consequently, tuina techniques training and Qi-Gong training will be carried out.Besides, we will provide basic knowledge regarding raw Chinese herbs. By teaching them to differentiate variety herbs with the flavor of herbs, they will be able to boil herbs according to their needs in order to improve their health.

Stage 2, an analysis will be prepared to compare the scale ofRheumatology pain of the patients before and after practicing basic tuina techniques that taught by us. So that they will be able to cultivate and improve their health condition.

In conclusion, we will expand our charity care throughout different places which lack of medical services and poor communities in the future. Besides that, it is also a pathway for them to know more about Traditional Chinese medicine. The charity event should be continued in order to create the awareness of health to the people as the saying goes, health is above the wealth.

1. Provide charity care to the rural area which lack of medical services.
2. Help the patients who haveRheumatismto reduce the pain.
3. Provide some basic teaching of Traditional Chinese medicine to the local communities of “Sekinchan” so that they can take care of themselves even we are not around in the future.
4. Increase personal and public awareness on health-related issues.
5. Improve the health of local communities.
6. Promote the value of traditional and modern Chinese Medicine so that the public can understandmore about Traditional Chinese Medicine treatment

The activities that we are focusing for this event will be Chinese Medicine and acupuncture treatment on patient withRheumatism as well as disease preventive management techniques as we want the local communities from “Sekichan”able to take care of themselves when medical services are not reachable. For the treatment part we will focus as the following:

1. Establishing rapport with the community – Visiting and meeting leaders to present our proposal and obtaining approval. 
2. Advertising our event to the community.
3. Patients who suffering fromRheumatism and facing financial problem to seek for medical treatments. 
4. Services to be offered – Consultation, Treatments such as prescribing Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Tuina, cupping and etc., preventive health management and some Traditional Chinese Medicine basic teaching.
5. Distribute the educational booklets to the local communities.
6. Set up a mini information corner with some TCM posters and life size stand foam standee. Life size stand foam standee is mainly related to the understanding of body constitution.
7. Follow up visits – Continuously taking care of the patients with Chinese Medicine consultation and treatments.

For preventive management, we will provide some basic teaching when the patients are waiting at the registration area. Besides that, we will set up a three booths for variety teaching. The booths are:

1. Chinese herbs identification and herbal drinks cooking teaching booth;
2. Body constitution booth – which will lead the patient to differentiate their own body constitutionand consuming healthy food to strengthen their health;
3. Tuina and Qi-gong booths – to train the patients about basics Tuina techniques and Qi gong, sothat they can practice themselves at home. 

We will try our best to allocate a Chinese physician for each booth to explain the doubt of the patients.

We will separate the tasks into the following departments:

1. Physician :

• Invite experienced qualified physician to provide consultation and treatment.

2. Team Leader:

• Coordinate all tasks and activities between the departments and make sure there is a clear concept regarding the procedures between the departments.

3. Internal Medicine Department

• Responsible to train the volunteers who are in charge of internal medicine affairs.

4. Acupuncture and traumatology department

• Responsible to train the selected volunteers with acupuncture sterilization and operating procedure.

5. Medicine dispensary department

• Responsible for training selected volunteers with the necessary procedure during allocating the drugs and anything related to drugs distribution procedures.

6. Registration department

• Responsible for registration procedure and the patient assigned procedure.

7. Health cultivation department

• Responsible to train the selected volunteers with the technique for each booth.
• Responsible to teach the patient the necessary techniques to help the patientswith their respective sickness so that they can take care of themselves.
• Provide some healthcare information with selected volunteers to explain to patients while they are waiting.
• Provide disease preventive management either in Tuina therapy or food therapy to the local communities.

8. Education department

• Collect the information related to the treatments for pain syndrome treatments.
• Design the life size stand foam standee and the educational booklets

9. Logistics Department

• Responsible for table and chair arrangement as well as the floor design.

10. Marketing and public relation department

• Responsible for advertisement, preparation of brochure and hall arrangement

• Local communities have a clear picture on TCM treatment.
• Local communities andthe patients have a basic medical knowledge on self-caring.
• Local communities andthe patients able to identify several types of herbs which they can be used at home when they are sick.
• Local communities andthepatients have basic understanding on disease prevention management.
• Local communities andthe patients able to differentiate their own constitution.
• The patients able to relieve the Rheumatismby applying the techniques they learned from this event in future.
• Solve the main problem which is the Rheumatism suffered among the communities.
• Build a long term relationship with the local communities and authorities.
• Give more on-site experience and exposure to TCM students.