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 like to help provide the knowledge about alternative health care such as 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. This year, we are going to collaborate 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 status and 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 groups who 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 Bukit Tuan Sheikh, Port Dickson as it is a place that Chinese medical treatments are scarce. According to our survey, the communities in this area are mostly suffering from joint pain syndrome. This situation can be solved by using acupuncture technique. We also found out that there is only one Chinese medicine clinic in Port Dickson area and due to the high medical cost of the clinic most of the patients are unable to afford the treatment fees.

We have learned the theory and practical applications of acupuncture. Acupuncture is very efficient in treating people who are experiencing 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’ pain syndrome.

To ensure long term care this project will be divided into three stages:

At the beginning, the team will identify the needs of the community. Approximately 30 patients with joint pains who 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 apply acu-point pressing and basic tuina techniques to relieve pain 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.

Secondly, at the same time, we will follow-up the condition of the particular selected 30 patients, trace the level of pain after they practiced basic tuina technique. Consequently, a second level of 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. At this point, China Medical University from Taiwan will be assisting with the project.

At the last stage, we will have the last follow-up session on the 30 selected patients. An analysis will be prepared to compare the scale of pain of the patients before and after practicing basic tuina techniques that taught by us. As the last part of this event, a third level of Qi-gong training will be carry out, 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 have pain syndrome to reduce the pain.

3. Provide some basic teaching of Traditional Chinese medicine to the local communities of Bukit Tuan Sheikh, Port Dickson 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 understand more about Traditional Chinese Medicine treatment.

The activities that we are focusing for this event will be Chinese Medicine and acupuncture treatment on patient with pain syndrome as well as disease preventive management techniques as we want the local communities from Bukit Tuan Sheikh, Port Dickson 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. Select 30 patients who suffering from pain syndrome 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 30 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 constitution and consuming healthy food to strengthen their health;

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.

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 patients with 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.
• Coordinate with committees of Malaysia Buddhist Association Port Dickson (馬佛總波 德申支會會所义診) to release notice to those remote area on the information about the event.

• Local communities have a clear picture on TCM treatment.
• Local communities and the 30 selected patients have a basic medical knowledge on self caring.
• Local communities and the 30 selected patients able to identify several types of herbs which they can be used at home when they are sick.
• Local communities and the 30 selected patients have basic understanding on disease prevention management.
• Local communities and the 30 selected patients able to differentiate their own constitution.
• The 30 selected patients able to relieve the pain syndrome by applying the techniques they learned from this event in future.
• Solve the main problem which is the pain syndrome 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.