Heartbit » gifts http://heartbit.randyamy.com bits of my life - health, fun, family, and food Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:33:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Vegetables and Fruits: Gifts from patients http://heartbit.randyamy.com/vegetables-and-fruits-gifts-from-patients http://heartbit.randyamy.com/vegetables-and-fruits-gifts-from-patients#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:53:47 +0000 AmyMD http://heartbit.randyamy.com/?p=498 banana
I distinctly remember when I was a child, my mom who worked as an RHU nurse, would be called for by local folks if somebody is delivering a baby. Most of these deliveries happen at night or at dawn. And my mom would be there almost the whole night waiting for the baby to come out.
atis
As a token for spending the entire night with them patiently waiting for the baby, staying up all night and still had to work the following day (such is the work in the RHU), the husband or close relatives of the woman who gave birth will give vegetables and fruits and sometimes live chicken to her as gifts.
eggplant
I have never encountered such practice while I was studying Medicine in any of the hospitals I attended to in Manila. And I thought that it was a thing of the past. Until I had my own practice back here in the province.
bitter gourd
My husband’s practice deals mostly with geriatric patients. Most of this patients are suffering from hypertension (high blood), diabetes, and other complicated geriatric diseases. He spends one day each month giving them free blood sugar examinations with free consultation, one day each week of free consultations to senor citizens, and he gives free samples to those who cannot afford to buy medicines. Sometimes, with a little cajoling, he can easily lower the price of consultations (much to my disagreement HAHAHA!). He is so soft hearted that sometimes he gives everything for free. And in return to all his goodness, patients come with baskets of vegetables, fruits and live chicken.
chicken 1
This practice of giving continued up to this time. And our fridge has never run out of vegetables and fruits coming from patients. In fact, our meals are mostly based on the available vegetables given by patients.
chicken 2
Now don’t get me wrong, its not only patients receiving free goods who are giving something in return. Even paying patients do, especially those who had been with us from the time we started. During harvest time, we receive shrimps, bangus (milkfish) and lots of other fishes from fishponds. This is a classic example of giving from the heart.
chicken3
Look at the pictures of chickens. Are they a sight to behold? They have multiplied and grown bigger. And all of the big ones came from patients. Some of them are now gone because we cooked them. But we stopped the practice of killing them when my kids refuse to eat chickens coming from our backyard.

]]> http://heartbit.randyamy.com/vegetables-and-fruits-gifts-from-patients/feed 0 Giving Gifts http://heartbit.randyamy.com/giving-gifts http://heartbit.randyamy.com/giving-gifts#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:58:17 +0000 AmyMD http://heartbit.randyamy.com/?p=89

Christmas

December 2008 Christmas gift giving

I give gifts to children every year, often before Christmas. It used to be in the form of medical mission done in my clinic and scheduled at least a month before the date. Most of the medicines I gave was in the form of multivitamins, the kind most mothers want to have. Then the cost of medicines soar, and less and less drug companies gave their support in the form of samples. The little budget I had will benefit only a small number of children so I tried other ways of sharing whatever I had to the less fortunate.

There was a time when I found our refrigerator filled with imported chocolates. They were gifts from relatives abroad, patients coming home from vacations, relatives of patients living abroad etc, etc. And my family is not so fond of chocolates. We can only consume  a bar or two for the whole month and so it accumulated. I gave everything to the neighborhood kids last Christmas.

Last month, while I was sorting and decluttering my kids’ belongings. The thought of giving their old toys to other kids came to my mind. Why not? The toys are very clean (cleaning is done once a week) and are as good as new. So I asked their permission and then we started sorting.

The neighborhood kids started singing Christmas carols on every doorstep since the start of December. And whenever a group of these kids start caroling, we tell them to get their gift on the 23rd, and that was last night.

The kids were very happy with their gifts. In fact there were so many of them that we ran out to things to give. I had to run to the clinic and find something that could fit as gift. Its good those giveaways given by medical representatives got accumulated all through the year were all placed in one corner of the clinic. It was easy to bring everything out and then given away. My kids helped me in giving and the feeling was just indescribable.

Merry Christmas to all!

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