Going to the hospital used to be an exhausting business for Jin Yuxiang, a resident at the Black Oil Mountain Elderly Nursing Center in Karamay, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

"I used to have to go to the hospital downtown when I felt sick,” Jin told reporters from Karamay Daily. Sometimes, the journey was almost as debilitating as her symptoms.

But things changed for Jin and the 300 other elderly residents at Black Oil Mountain in August when a new medical clinic run by Deep Blue Unique Medical Group opened in the nursing center.

"Now I can get professional health care without stepping out of our community!” Jin says excitedly.

The new clinic is part of an initiative by Karamay to improve elderly people’s access to health care services by integrating the medical resources of the city’s hospitals with the facilities already present inside Karamay’s nursing homes.

Able to provide a range of inpatient and outpatient treatment including prescriptions, checkups, injections, emergency first aid and recovery care, the clinic not only offers Black Oil Mountain’s older residents greater convenience but also enables them to receive faster and more regular medical attention.

The community is now equipped with seven full-time general practitioners and nurses, who make rounds of visits to the clinic’s inpatients and visit outpatients at home. Several professional doctors are also employed part-time to assist with regular visits and consultations.

"The cooperation between the center and Deep Blue Unique Medical Group can provide a more comfortable life for the elderly living nearby because they can access medical care within a few minutes when they need it,” said Ma Cheng, the president of the Black Oil Mountain Elderly Nursing Center.

General practitioners from Deep Blue Unique Medical Group perform a physical examinations on an elderly patient at the Black Oil Mountain Elderly Nursing Center. [Photo/kelamayi.com.cn]

Edited by Dominic Morgan