By Xiong Jian, This year marks the 30th anniversary of China’s implementation of paired-up assistance in Xizang autonomous region.
Over the past three decades, numerous medical professionals from different regions across the country have come to Xizang, providing targeted, systematic and long-term assistance for the region while also building local capacities for self-sustaining development. This paired-up assistance system has significantly boosted Xizang’s medical and healthcare sector and steadily improved local people’s wellbeing.
In 2016, Hou Xinlin, chief physician at the Department of Pediatrics of Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, joined a paired-up assistance program and started working at the Xizang Autonomous Region People’s Hospital.
“At that time, the hospital’s pediatrics department was already the largest in Xizang. However, it could mainly deal with common and prevalent diseases, lacking the ability to treat patients in severe conditions,” she said.
“Given this situation, our primary focus was to increase the number of diseases that could be treated here so as to ensure that every child could receive proper medical treatment and healthcare,” Hou added.
Upon her arrival in Xizang, Hou encountered a 3-year-old child who was suffering from continuous bleeding due to a lip injury. Local doctors were unable to determine the disease.
“The medical professionals of our team quickly identified it as hemophilia, a rare blood disorder. It marked the first time that the disease was diagnosed in Xizang,” Hou recalled.
According to Hou, thanks to years of medical assistance, the Xizang Autonomous Region People’s Hospital has become a hemophilia treatment center of China Alliance for Rare Diseases. All hemophilia-affected children in the region can now receive standardized, effective, systematic, long-term, and high-quality medical services, Hou said.
Thirty years on, tens of thousands of Chinese medical workers like Hou have come to Xizang, providing services with superb medical skills, alleviating local patients’ suffering, and safeguarding people’s health.
Thanks to the coordination of China’s National Health Commission (NHC), the paired-up assistance program has seen the participation of 17 Chinese provinces and municipalities.
China’s NHC has also worked with dozens of Chinese ministries and state-owned enterprises to jointly roll out a variety of medical aid programs, including assistance by medical professionals in groups to Xizang, building partnerships between Xizang and other more developed regions in China, and sending doctors from major hospitals to grassroots institutions, especially those in the country’s rural areas. All these efforts have significantly advanced medical assistance for Xizang.
Since 2012, more than 30 billion yuan ($4.11 billion) from Chinese central funds or funds from regions that have partnered with Xizang have been invested in boosting the region’s healthcare development. At present, Xizang has established a relatively comprehensive and well-structured healthcare service system that covers both urban and rural areas.
Tibetan medicine plays an essential role in this process. Xizang has many specialized Tibetan medicine hospitals, and some general hospitals have also set up departments to provide Tibetan medicine services, said Liu Kui, head of the Department of Finance of China’s NHC.
“We have fully leveraged the advantages of Chinese ethnic medicine in medical treatment, prevention, healthcare, rehabilitation, and nursing to further enhance people’s wellbeing,” Liu said.
Thanks to the assistance from Chinese central and local governments, public health services for various ethnic groups in Xizang have been elevated to a higher level. Key health indicators such as the mortality rates for pregnant women and infants and toddlers have dropped precipitously, and the average life expectancy has increased by nearly six years over the past decade.
Human resources are the key to enhancing medical services. In recent years, medical professionals from 182 hospitals across 12 Chinese provinces have provided medical assistance to 21 hospitals in Xizang, including the Xizang Autonomous Region People’s Hospital, seven hospitals at the prefectural level, and 13 at the county level.
Additionally, a range of mentoring programs have been implemented to ensure that Xizang’s medical services can meet the needs of people at all ages. Statistics show that since 2015, over 4400 new diagnostic and treatment projects and technologies have been introduced in Xizang with assistance from different regions in China.
Over the past 30 years, Xizang has seen significant advances in healthcare, thanks to the paired-up assistance program. The region now has over 1,800 medical institutions with 22,000 hospital beds, compared with less than 1,200 hospitals with 5,600 beds about three decades ago. The number of physicians per 1,000 people has also increased from 1.9 to 3.3.
Local medical capabilities have also improved gradually as remote diagnosis and treatment platforms now cover all rural clinics. As a result, more than 400 types of major illnesses, including giant intracranial aneurysms and pediatric leukemia, can be treated within Xizang, and more than 2,000 types of severe conditions such as heart attacks and strokes can be treated locally.
“Through relentless efforts, all key health indicators for residents in Xizang have reached a record high, and the proportion of out-of-pocket health expenditures to total expenses has fallen below 10 percent,” said Guo Luo, deputy head of Xizang’s health commission.
