Medical Equip Lending for Rare Disease

TFRD has launched the project “Medical Equip Lending for Rare Disease” since 2004. The project aims to serve patients with equipment lending throughout disease progression. Through the lending service, the hope is to mitigate the patients’ financial burden for the essential equipment, expendable supplies, and medical dressings. Since 2004 to 2024, 2,394 patients have benefited from the Medical Equip Lending project.

Project “Medical Equip Lending for Rare Disease” serves as a platform to match those in needs, aims to efficiently integrate and relocate the resources. Equipment from the foundation and/or the donations is gathered, tested, and sterilized before lending. The patients will return the equipment when they no longer need. In 2024, the project has served 28 patients, provided repair and consulting services to 65 people, including patients with Muscular Atrophy, Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, and other metabolism diseases.

Patients who require medical home care entail tremendous expendable supplies, especially patients with Hereditary Epidermolysis Bullosa (Butterfly disease). The symptoms of these diseases include constant development of large areas of blisters on the skins. Patients require huge amount of medical dressings, such as gauzes and bandages, to prevent from infections. Although part of the medical dressings is covered by National Health Insurance, the items and amounts are limited. Patients still need to pay for the special medical dressings, which is a huge financial burden. TFRD has subsidized 52 patients, NTD$199,775 dollars in total in 2024.