“It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice”… so goes an old Chinese Proverb!
But I ask “how can a mouse be caught, if the cat has been de-clawed and rendered toothless?”
In 1965, a young disillusioned man, Robin Chan left his second home-land Burma for Hong Kong. Born in China, he had been brought to Burma at the age of 4 years by his father, a passionate follower of Confucius’ doctrines who could not accept the dictates of Mao, whose ideology of imbuing children to lose respect for their parents and look to the government for all guidance was an anathema.
The boy Robin was educated in Burma under the tutorship of Missionaries … Sisters of Charity and the De La Salle Brothers.
Lasalle2.org and converted to Catholisism.
Later his brother, Rev. Wilfred Chan a Jesuit Priest, with the help of Father Eddie Evans, secured a scholarship in Padua, Italy, for the young Chan and he graduated with his Medical Degree in 1971, specializing in General Surgery and later became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He met and married his Italian wife, Rosaria and remained in Italy quite content, practicing his profession as a surgeon for the next three plus decades.
And then quite suddenly after a comfortable life for many years in the West, an inexplicable feeling aroused an inner aspiration within Dr. Robin Chan to do something positive for Burma and thus he embarked on a journey which in a few short years has likened him to the phoenix rising up from the ashes as he heard the call of a hopeless people caught in the jaws of despair.
He applied to the Burmese Ambassador in Rome and with the assistance of Win Than Oo of Rangoon he was granted permission to work twice at the DSGH (Defense Service General Hospital) in Mingaladon, a suburb of Rangoon, Burma.
Later, an old class mate, a prominent surgeon, Dr. Freddie Tun Thaung who now lives in Baltimore, introduced Dr. Chan to a private clinic, Pun Hlaing International Hospital in Rangoon
spa.com.mm. The hospital was built by entrepreneur Serge Pun!
irrawaddy.org.
Pun Hlaing International Hospital (PHIH) a $21 million facility, opened in June 2005.
On arrival at this spanking new luxury private clinic, Dr. Chan found, operating rooms, instruments and tools for abdominal and laparoscopic surgery, his specialty, but not many qualified staff to utilize these facilities. So he jumped in with both feet, rolled up his sleeves, scrubbed down and began performing surgeries, sharing his knowledge and teaching younger surgeons.
At PHIH he is credited not only as a pioneer in laparoscopic surgery and prosthetic inguinal hernia repair but also for the use of a stapling device for piles!
Dr. Chan now developed an insatiable appetite to continue work in Burma. Happenstance brought him into contact with a scholarly man, also a La Sallian graduate, Ko Sithu of Perth, Australia who introduced him to a Buddhist monk, Sayadaw U Lakkhana of Wachet in the Sagaing Hills of Burma.
www.dhammaweb.
The Sayadaw (venerable teacher) had founded in 1984, a charity hospital in Wachet for the care of monks and nuns, and also offered treatment for nearby villagers at minimum cost.
To his dismay and shock, when Dr. Chan visited Wachet Hospital, he found an old operating room, rusty and unsanitary equipment, torn bedding and two old room air conditioners blowing air onto the operating table. The monk asked the good doctor if he could return and help as a surgeon. Dr. Chan answered “yes, I can come and kill your patients, but I cannot cure them”. The stunned monk asked what he could do and subsequently visited PHIH where Dr. Chan showed him the essentials and the basic aseptic requirements of a modern operating room.
In no time the Sayadaw with his own funds and the $3,600 collected from donations in Italy by Dr. Chan, a new operating room was constructed at Wachet Hospital.
vipassanahawaii.org.
Another La Sallian friend, Ko Tin-Wa introduced American physicians Daniele & Liz Baldini from Seattle to Dr. Chan and suggested that he take them along on his next trip to Burma.
Plans were made for Dr. Chan to lead this American surgical team, headed by Dr. Baldini, to operate on children at the Wachet Hospital, but for unforeseen reasons the mission was cancelled at the last moment in January 2007.
This January, 2009, Dr. Chan, completed a successful charity trip to Wachet, where armed with surgical materials from tapes, sutures to polypropylene meshes and plugs, he saw 84 patients in 10 days and operated on 40 of them completely free of charge bearing all expenses himself. He treated “inguinal hernias, hydroceles, varicose veins, piles, fistulae and fissures”.
One would imagine that any of these accomplishments would be sufficient, but oh no, not for Dr. Chan!
Following the cyclone Nargis in May 2008, Dr. Chan volunteered much of his time taking small donations from people world-wide, many from the USA and the U.K. and distributed rice, oil and other food to those who lay destitute by the storm, as well as providing them with 18 foot-long fishing boats equipped with fishing nets and small engines.
At a Lasallian English and Computer Educational Center, located in Kamayut in Rangoon,
dlsmm.org Dr. Chan sponsors students to study English and Computer Science. Funds to run the Center come in from the Brothers’ Mother House in Rome and from the De La Salle Brothers of the Philippines. The La Sallian Brothers have freedom to educate these students. This Center is headed by Brother Joseph and assisted by Brother Lawrence and others. The course runs for three months at the cost of $12 to $25 per student.
Dr. Chan gives part of his excess funds to this center.
The small percentage that he earns operating on wealthier patients at Pun Hlaing International Hospital, he hands over to a trusted friend U San Nyo Aung of Rangoon to give scholarships to poor and needy students.
Dr. Chan, his friends and some well to do ex-patients maintain 15 students, ten of which are at the University in Magway (Faculty of Medicine and Engineering). Magway is located approximately 50 miles south of Salin on the West bank of the River Irrawaddy.
He arranged with U San Nyo Aung to allocate $35 per month for the 10 months of school, to each student for the six years of their education. Recently due to inflation, he has authorized Aung to allow the students to draw up to $70.00 per month.
The only conditions that Dr. Chan requires are that …
* The recipients of this scholarship come from the poorest families;
* Be ‘distinct’ in five out of six subjects at Matriculation (there are six subjects at the exam of Matriculation in the final year of High School. If a student scores over 75% in a subject, he/she gets a ‘distinction’);
* And have the will and determination to be further educated in Medicine, Law or Engineering.
Last November two graduated in Medicine and are now doing their internships. One graduated in Engineering. The rest are at school in Rangoon and Mandalay.
Dr. Robin Chan is one of the “cats” from the Chinese proverb who has not had his claws and teeth removed.
The de-clawed cats named Sanctions and Embargoes have been imposed on Burma for decades. Most recently, business men from around the world have withdrawn from Burma due to these embargoes.
Closed down factories lie in waste and the thousands of people that they once employed also lie in waste.
Languishing young women in particular, but also men have had to go into prostitution. I was told of one young girl who after a night of prostitution, took her humble earnings to the market to buy a tiny piece of “ngapi” a delicacy of fermented fish. At home, her mother waited to use the “ngapi” to flavor a watery soup served with a bowl of rice to her family.
Dr. Robin Chan after years of malaise found his true calling in these selfless gestures to give to the people of Burma with no other intention but helping out his fellow mankind. Heroes are seldom recognized by their peers!
I asked him what his frustrations were … he answered “I wish I could give more, in terms of money and time, especially being able to stay for longer periods at Wachet hospital performing my moral obligation as a surgeon. I was brought up and spent the most splendid years of my life in Burma and that is why I am still so attached to that country; like an umbilical cord to a fetus, as the Burmese would say! My main hope is that I could raise $50,000 to buy a Laparoscopic Rack for Wachet hospital and start doing and teaching laparoscopic surgery at Wachet. Time is against me as I am already 63 years old!”
"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281.
