A country practice

Improved services

Thanks to increased funding from the central government and aid from other provinces, medical services in Medog have improved significantly in recent years, according to Deng.

The cure rate of regional diseases has increased greatly since 2006, when the nation carried out a disease-control program in the region.

Now Deng's hospital has more than 40 staff members, whose number has been growing gradually. It receives about 10,000 patients every year and performs more than 70 regular operations.

Local people's health awareness has improved over the years. In the past, many rural people would not visit hospitals until their diseases got very serious or even incurable.

"Such cases are becoming rare," Deng says, adding that local people's increased incomes and the nation's new cooperative medical care system for rural residents has greatly relieved people's health problems.

Challenges remain

However, Deng admits that medical work in Medog still faces challenges.

"It's difficult for us to attract talented doctors from outside, and too few local students choose medicine when they go out to study," Deng says.

Short of hands, all the doctors in his hospital are general practitioners and must learn to do different kinds of surgical operations. Though much valuable equipment has been donated to his hospital in recent years, few people know how to use it.

For example, the newly equipped electro-encephalograph has been put aside and there is no stomatology department in his hospital, despite the equipment being available for several years.

"Sometimes they seem like scrap for us," Deng sighs.

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