Healing Angels From China

By DING YING

Healing Angels From China

By DING YING

COURTESY OF LU JIANLIN

Medical teams from China fight death and disease in the harshest environments in Africa

One Sunday in early August, Chen Zhufeng, chief of a Chinese medical team in Tanzania, drove to check the water supply for his members in Tabora, a water-is-life place in Tanzania.Walking by a small reservoir, he was stopped by an old woman. She held up several eggs in her hands, begging Chen to accept them.

She told Chen Chinese doctors brought her critically ill grandson back to life several days before. Those eggs were the only valuables her impoverished family had to offer.“Please take them. This is the only way I can express my gratitude,” she said. Chen accepted her eggs, but paid her several times the normal price for them.

Things like this often happen to Chinese doctors working in Tanzania, Chen said in an interview withBeijing Reviewin Dar es Salaam. “Although we overpay people on these occasions, we are very grati fi ed to help them and make their lives better.”

According to the Chinese Ministry of Health, 981 Chinese medical team members are working in 41 African nations. They have left their families and well-paid jobs to work in Africa during the peak years of their careers. Many places on this continent have the toughest medical conditions imaginable.But the contributions made by Chinese medical teams have won sincere respect from the people they serve.

Whenever a Chinese doctor meets local people, he will receive warm greetings of“Chinese doctor, my friend,” Chen said.

Devotion

Last year, China and Tanzania jointly celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first Chinese medical team coming to Tanzania.China now has two medical teams working in Tanzania. The teams are based respectively in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

Deo M. Mtasiva, Chief Medical Officer of Tanzania’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, said there have been over 20 Chinese medical teams working in the country, and all the teams have been marvelous. He said many Chinese doctors are working in highly deprived and remote areas like Tabora, Dodoma and Musoma, where conditions are extremely diff i cult due to severe water shortages.

“They are warm-hearted, dedicated,highly skilled and endlessly take time to help our people,” said Mtasiva.

The most important contribution China has made to health care in Tanzania is the establishment of a cardiac surgery treatment and training center in Dar es Salaam, he said. The center, built by China as part of its medical assistance, is scheduled to open in September or October.

The center has three operating theaters,over a dozen cardiac intensive care units (ICUs)under 24-hour supervision, and 10 more regular wards. In addition to Chinese doctors, the center will gather the best doctors and nurses in Tanzania, most of whom have received medical training in China, India and Europe.

“Even in China, such a center is of topclass,” Chen said.

Chen, who heads a 25-member medical team dispatched by China’s Shandong Province,has been working in Tanzania for eight years.He had a good job in China at an immunobiology lab at a famous hospital in Jinan, capital of Shandong Province. Chen came to Tanzania in 2003 as a medical team member and has been chief of the team since 2009.

“When I came to Tanzania for the first time, I was scared of deadly infectious diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever and AIDS,” he recalled. “But people here are nice, warm-hearted, and friendly to us. Plus,they are really in need of our help.”

So Chen decided to stay in the country. For him, there is too much work to do. Chen said every member of his team has to overcome fi ve barriers: livelihood, language, getting along with other team members, homesickness and tough working conditions. His job as a chief is taking care of all the members on his team.

(Left) WORKING TOGETHER:Jiamala Taib, President of the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, with members of the Chinese medical team, including Geng Ning and Lu Jianlin(fourth and sixth from left),in Zanzibar, Tanzania

BUILDING HOPE:A China-sponsored eye center in the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital(Right) SIGHT REGAINED:A Chinese doctor checks a patient’s sight before a free cataract operation on March 21 at a hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe

“My parents have passed away, my wife is retired, and my kid went to college last year. Now I can devote all my time and energy to helping people here,” said Chen. “Plus,I have accumulated practical experience and established good communication channels with Tanzanian health of fi cials.”

Fulfillment

A 12-member medical team from Jiangsu Province headed by Lu Jianlin is working in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island of Tanzania, while nine others from Jiangsu are taking care of people on the neighboring Pemba Island. Lu and his colleagues work in different departments in Zanzibar’s biggest hospital, the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital.

In 2009, China sponsored an eye clinic valued at over 1.3 million yuan (about$200,000) for Zanzibar. The eye clinic is the most advanced medical service at the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital.

There are a lot of glaucoma and cataract cases in Zanzibar because of the strong tropical sunlight, said Geng Ning, a Chinese medical team member at the center. Before the eye center was built, rich people had to get operations in other countries like Egypt,while many poor people lost their sight at a young age due to cataracts, which are curable after an operation.

“I love my job here. I am so glad my patients are able to see again. People’s lives are hard here. If they lose their sight, you cannot imagine what their life will be,” she said.Because Chinese doctors don’t charge for outpatient services and operation expenses,people only need to pay a small amount to regain their sight.

Like other Chinese doctors, she has a local doctor as an assistant. “My assistant is very smart and works very, very hard.Sometimes I give him opportunities to do easy parts to gain experience after fi nishing the difficult parts of an operation. Only by training local doctors, can we create a medical team that never leaves,” she said.

The Chinese medical team is also trying to build an ICU in Zanzibar. “The most painful thing for us is we know we could save some patients who we lose, because of the poor equipment,” said Lu.

He explained that like many other places in Africa, people in Zanzibar usually just endure their diseases. They go to the hospital only when they cannot stand to suffer any more. By that time, their diseases will have grown serious and complicated. All departments of the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital can share the ICU when dealing with complicated cases, Lu said.

In addition, the Chinese medical team in Zanzibar is conducting a project to help cleft lip and palate children. Due to weak prematernity care, the death rate for such cases is as high as one in 800 in the region. These patients are suffering not only physically, but also psychologically, said Lu. He said if the project is successful, many kids could get treatment before they reach puberty, and will grow up with more con fi dence.

Moreover, Lu and his team members plan to cooperate with the local government on maternity care education to help prevent cleft lip and palate cases, like asking pregnant women to take folic acid before or during the fi rst three months of pregnancy.

When asked if they felt worse off than their colleagues at home, Lu and his members answered with no hesitation, “We are respected here, which also is a kind of gain.”

(Reporting from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, Tanzania)