Rehabilitation for burn survivors in Taiwan

Every year, Sunshine Foundation helps hundreds of burn survivors by providing physical and psychosocial rehabilitation services, the ultimate goal being to help our clients regain their independence and return to an active life in society. However, this is a long process that would not be possible without your support.

Burn survivors have a simple wish: Go back home as soon as possible

A-Feng sustained an electrical burn one year ago that severely injured his left hand. At that time, his wife was three-month pregnant and A-Feng began to worry about the future: When would he get out of hospital? Would he be able to return to work? When the nurse told him he could be discharged and go back home, A-Feng and his wife were ecstatic and thought that their life could finally go back to normal. They didn’t believe when the nurse said: “Going back home is the start of real hardships.” For them, going back home was the end of their ordeal. But a few weeks later, A-Feng began to understand what the nurse meant: his scars started to grow and contract to the point where he wasn’t even able to pick up a bowl of food.

Watch how A-Feng found his reason to fight

Finding something to fight for: A father's love for his son

A-Feng began undergoing rehabilitation at Sunshine’s Rehabilitation Center on a daily basis. Despite the pain and the difficulties, he didn’t give up: “I want to get better because I want to be able to hold my child.” At first, his hands lacked the strength to pick up the simplest objects but now, he’s able to pick up and hold his five-month old son in his arms, and he’s even able to feed him his bottle and change his diaper. For A-Feng: “Having my family close to me is what gives me the strength to fight. At Sunshine, I was not only able to regain my physical functions, but I also regained my smile. I will soon be able to return to work and I hope that I can give back to society.”

Sunshine offers to burn survivors like A-Feng physical rehabilitation, psychological counseling and support, pressure garments, independent living training and employment services. In 2018, we expect to provide services to over 800 burn survivors across Taiwan and your support is crucial to help us achieve our goal. As we prepare to celebrate Father's Day, we hope that you will continue to support Rehabilitation for burn survivors in Taiwan and help fathers like A-Feng achieve their goal of recovery.

For someone who sustained a severe burn injury,returning home after hospital discharge can be quite a challenge. Apart from having to do daily wound dressing changes, burn survivors are often limited in their ability to carry out daily activities like showering, putting on clothes, etc. Sunshine Half-Way House is a place where burn survivors can stay while undergoing rehabilitation at Sunshine Foundation and receive daily care services and independent living training.

Leaving one’s family for a group home can be difficult, but Sunshine Half-Way House has Chun-Mei, a Senior Care Attendant, who takes burn survivors under her wings and cares for them just like a mother would.

Chun-Mei herself is a burn survivor, she went through a period of distress and depression, then came to Sunshine to undergo rehabilitation and resided at the Half-Way House. There, she started to regain confidence in herself and eventually, after completing her rehabilitation, she joined Sunshine as a Care Attendant, undergoing rigorous formal training and receiving numerous professional accreditations.

For 19 years, she has accompanied the residents of Sunshine Half-Way House in their efforts to regain daily living independence. When new residents join the House, she’s the one who welcomes them and helps them familiarize themselves with their new environment. When residents are limited by scar contracture and deformities from doing things by themselves, she’s the one who helps them shower, brush their teeth and put on pressure garments. When residents see their physical functions improve, Chun-Mei starts to train them in regaining the ability to do things independently. Throughout, she gives encouragement and support, she listens to clients when they need to confide in someone, and offers a shoulder to cry on.

Chun-Mei's job is much more than housekeeping and helping clients with their personal needs. She wants to make clients feel like they are coming home. Seeing clients today: "I can understand their pain, because it reminds me of how I used to be." So she tries to make their living environment as comfortable as possible. She is also there to listen to them and share her own experience in the hope that it will bring them encouragement. As a burn survivor, her words often resonate more strongly with clients and she is happy when she sees the positive effect she has.

Although clients are away from their family and face many uncertainties, the motherly presence of Chun-Mei gives them a sense of stability, security and hope for the future.

Thanks to the support of donors like you, Sunshine Foundation can help burn survivors rebuild their lives so that like Chun-Mei, they can give back to others and pay it forward.