From left – Hilary Giang, St Faith’s Church priest-in-charge Nelson Ugas and Rev Joshua Jo at the free medical services at St Faith’s Church.
Rev Joshua Jo (fifth right, third row), Dr Kang (seventh right) and the medical team in a photo call at the St Francis’ Church.
KUCHING: The free medical check-up provided by a group of medical and dental personnel of the Bridge Medical Association (BMA) at St Faith’s Church received an overwhelming response from members of the public yesterday.
The 34-member team from South Korea, led by Dr Kang Gi-Chang who is a dentist, offered free medical services like pain management, ear, nose and throat (ENT), orthopaedic, ultrasonography and X-ray, and dental check-ups.
St Faith’s Church at Kenyalang Park was the team’s last stop during their trip to Kuching since February 7. They will be going back to South Korea tonight.
They had been offering medical and dental services to local villagers at St Maria’s Church, Abok in Sri Aman, St Francis’ Church in Kota Samarahan besides St Faith’s Church here.
“We are from the Bridge Medical Association (BMA), which is a non-governmental organisation. This is our second trip to Sarawak with the assistance from Reverend Joshua Jo who is familiar with the locals here.
“Our charity activities are self-funded and we go abroad once to twice a year to provide free medical and dental services,” Dr Kang told The Borneo Post yesterday.
He said they had been to countries like Mongolia, Nepal, Bangladesh besides visiting rural and remote places and islands in South Korea to carry out their charity work.
His team comprised nine doctors including four dentists, while the rest are medical students, he added.
He said BMA had members from different hospitals, clinics and universities in South Korea.
When met, Rev Joshua Jo, who is also the priest-in-charge at St Maria’s Church, revealed that the free medical services at the church on Feb 8 and 9 received very good response, with around 900 patients coming in the two days.
“The main objective of the charity work is to give free medical services to people so that those who cannot afford these services either because of financial problem, or transportation problem, could benefit from this charity activity.
“We also received a very good response during our visit to the St Francis’ Church yesterday (Feb 10).
“With the help of a local friend, I managed to organise the trip for the team to provide their services for the locals here. In Korea, they have public holidays during the Chinese New Year like in Malaysia. So the medical team took the opportunity of the one-week holiday to go abroad to do charity work,” Joshua explained.
Activity co-ordinator Hilary Giang who also spoke to The Borneo Post said he requested to Rev Joshua to hold the activity at St Faith’s Church, and was glad that the event was successful.
He said it was the first time the team visited the church.
“We made announcement through our church bulletin and the response is very good from church members and non-members. From 8.30am to 10am this morning (yesterday), we already have not less than 100 people coming.
“We hope the team can visit us again next year,” he said.
According to him, the group will be paying a courtesy call on Archbishop Bolly Lapok at the Rumah Bishop of St Thomas’ Cathedral this morning (February 12) before leaving for home tonight.