Wheelchair Program in its Third Year Report from the Program

Dear Friends:

This is the third year Kham Aid Foundation has distributed wheelchairs to western Sichuan Province. I have been in Chengdu for almost a week. Each day has brought with it a new level of frustration.

We have two sources of chairs. With the help of one partner, the Wheelchair Foundation, we purchased good, serviceable chairs from a joint venture company near Hong Kong. These chairs are simple in design and meant for general use. This year we bought 240 of them and they are piled high outside my room at the Holy Love School for Handicapped Children where we are staying. Our other partner, Wheels for Humanity, in southern California, provides us with refurbished wheelchairs. Many of the chairs are designed for severely handicapped children and adults. They require the expertise of physical therapists to fit the wheelchairs to the patient so there is maximum benefit. These ninety-six chairs are at the train station held up by Customs.

Our team consists of Eunice Shen, the project director, a doctor and seven physical therapists and technicians. I am the problem “fixer”. The team arrived ready to start fitting the complicated chairs- the ones that are held up at Customs. We were to leave Chengdu for Kham two days ago. When the team arrived, the officials from the Sichuan Federation for Disabled Persons said they did not know where the chairs were—maybe they were on their way from Shanghai. The paperwork had been mislaid, but eventually was discovered on someone’s desk.

We were then told that even if the chairs came, they could not be released until the end of the month. Next came the announcement that the chairs were in Chengdu, but they needed a “Declaration of Responsibility” promising that all shipping costs had been paid. I wrote the letter. Yesterday, we were told that they needed a “No-wood Declaration” stating that there were no wood packing materials. I wrote the letter. Then the officials told us that the chairs had been en route so long that our import permit had expired. The permit was extended. Today, we were told that the customs people had looked at the chairs and found wood in the packing materials.

We got the packer out of bed in the US to discuss this by telephone. He assured us there was no wood. Right after we talked with him, a call came in saying that the customs officials had discovered that the chairs were not new and since there is a regulation against shipping used wheelchairs to China, all of the shipment must be returned to the US at our expense. Then they agreed that maybe there were some new chairs and we could have those. Only with great persistence, did we get permission to go to the train station early in the morning and inspect the chairs (and this mysterious wood) ourselves. This courtesy required special permission.

During this period of high drama, we were asked to visit the De Yang Orphanage an hour and a half drive outside Chengdu. The orphanage had been given wheelchairs last year, but did not know how to use them. The De Yang Orphanage is usually off-limits to foreigners. Many of the children here are handicapped. The most common diagnosis is cerebral palsy (CP).


Ming Chai, 6, has cerebral palsy and spina bifida.	Ming Cai, also 6, with CP and spina bifida, and the chair she uses to help support herself.	Program director Eunice Shen with unnamed orphan boy.

Ming Chai is six years old with CP and a mild form of spina bifida. His toothy grin warms our hearts. He can say a few words. When I gave him a stuffed toy, he promptly grabbed it and said gou (dog). He crooned to the dog as our team doctor examined him. He has the body and mind of a three year old. He wears pants with no seat to make it easier to clean him up. Last year’s wheelchair fits him perfectly with a few adjustments. I gave him a fast ride around the courtyard just for fun. When I left him to see how another child was doing, he grabbed my hand and I fought back my tears.

Ming Cai is also six years old. She also has CP and a form of spina bifida. She propels herself by resting her knee on a small chair and lifts her knee as she moves the chair forward. She has callouses on her leg from the chair. How can we get her to Los Angeles for treatment and the proper leg braces? one of the therapists wonders.

An un-named baby is only 4 months old. The doctor examines him. His only “defect” is an inguinal hernia. easily cured by surgery. His parents gave him up when they found out he wasn't perfect. Eunice Shen, wheelchair program director for Kham Aid Foundation, wants to adopt him, but the Chinese government assigns children to foreigners adopting Chinese children, and there is no guarantee she could have this specific child.

Eunice and Ada Dot (our doctor, who is from Tennessee) are allowed upstairs to see the children confined to their beds. A child diagnosed with Hepatitis B is sharing a crib with another child. This is quickly remedied. Other children are badly handicapped, but given that a single caretaker has 13 children in her care, the doctor nods her approval. Dr. Ada Dot instructs a caretaker on the use of antibiotics for two infections, one of them a severely infected eye socket in a blind child with CP who cries fretfully. The caretaker is told to keep the child’s hands clean so she won't re-infect the eye. She nods, but given her huge workload, we wonder how much she can really do. Five children are fitted for wheelchairs and they are lined up for a group photo. It is time to go. We reluctantly board our bus.

High seas? Container of mangled wheelchairs, as it appeared to the customs agents opening the container in Chengdu.

Back to the Customs saga. In the morning, Eunice and I went to the train station to see the used wheelchairs and the mysterious wood packing—it turned out to be a therapy table.

Unfortunately, the cargo train depot was an hour and a half outside the city and we had to be back by 1 PM to join the team for the bus ride to Kangding. The road is only open every other day to Kangding because of construction, so we could not afford to miss the narrow departure window. Our teammates packed our two rented trucks with the new wheelchairs while we were gone.

At the depot, the customs officers opened the container door. We gasped. Expecting to see orderly stacks of cardboard boxes and bubble-wrapped physical therapy equipment, we saw what looked like a PT junkyard. What had happened? The customs officer wanted to know why we sere sending them our junk. Was it vandalism? Where did it happen? Was the loss covered by insurance? There was nothing to do, but close the container and agree to pay the storage fee while we sorted it out. We would have to make do with the 240 standard wheelchairs. We hit the road for Kham. The adventure begins.

Continued in the next report.