Retired nurse in her 90s leads volunteer service

On a chilly, damp morning last weekend, Zhang Jinyuan, the former head of the nursing department at Nanchang First Hospital in Jiangxi province and two medical staff members gave a lecture to five volunteers being trained to provide community service.

After half an hour of instruction, Zhang and the volunteers headed out to provide health monitoring and nursing guidance to two elderly people. One was a 91-year-old suffering from Alzheimer's and diabetes, and the other was a 72-year-old with limited mobility, low vision and a history of strokes.

Wearing a nurse's cap, Zhang leads the team as they provide volunteer services every Saturday, offering vulnerable groups free nursing services and health consultations.

Zhang, who is in her 90s, initiated the volunteer service 24 years ago. In 2000, Zhang and 16 other retired colleagues set up the Jiangxi Red Cross Caring Center to provide services at the community level.

"I've been a clinical nurse for 45 years," she said. "After retiring in 1992, I went to various hospitals to be an evaluator, reviewing first-, second- and third-tier hospitals."

During her evaluations, she found that hospitals were doing well in all aspects of work, but the patients kept returning — the same old patients who were cured one day but came back the next.

Puzzled, she decided to visit their homes and see what was going on.

"I found that either they forgot to take their medicine or their family members weren't taking good care of them," she said. "So, I thought our society and communities were in dire need of methods to take care of the vulnerable in a scientific way."

Since then, Zhang has been leading her team of volunteers to provide free nursing services, health consultations and care to the community.

Over the past two decades, Zhang and her team of volunteers have assisted more than 700,000 people.

In 2003, Zhang received the Florence Nightingale Medal, the world's highest nursing honor.

Last year, she was awarded the International Council of Nurses and the Florence Nightingale International Foundation International Achievement Award, becoming the first Chinese nurse to receive the global accolade.

"I'm proud, but I'm also grateful," she said. "It's not that I got it; it's because of China's growth that the world recognizes Chinese nurses as excellent, and I happened to be chosen."

Despite being over 90 years old, Zhang said she has not done enough.

"I still do community service, but very rarely, once a week, and can only visit one or two homes," she said. "I wish I could do more."

Under Zhang's influence, the volunteer team, which includes medical workers, entrepreneurs, community officials and caring individuals from various fields, has grown larger. More than 98 percent are young workers and students.

Wan Qing, Zhang's assistant and a nurse at Nanchang First Hospital, said Zhang has stepped up efforts to pass on her valuable work.

"That's why Zhang insists on conducting classes for the volunteers every Saturday, imparting various professional nursing skills and the art of effective communication with the elderly," Wan said.

"The volunteers are divided into 45 teams, with each connecting with at least one local community, mainly providing home nursing guidance for vulnerable groups and patients who lack self-care abilities. We also offer health consultations and health education for community residents."

In 2010, Zhang proposed the establishment of the Nanchang Nightingale volunteer service team, which became China's first nongovernmental organization specializing in nursing volunteer services.

Since then, it has extended its service model to 19 provincial-level regions, and Zhang has clocked more than 26,000 hours of volunteer service.

Zhang said volunteer service has no age limit.

"It's true that the elderly like me should have something to live on and someone to rely on," she said. "But they also need something to do and something to learn. Only then will they feel they have value.

"And what is beauty? A healthy and confident smile is beauty. So, the positive health concept of the elderly should be spread to all elderly people so that they can have a healthy and happy smile."