A medical expert team has spent two years with capacity building at a grassroots hospital in southwest China's Guizhou Province and wish to bring up expertise that will not leave the local people.
The team, led by Fu Xiaoyun, vice president of the Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University and director of the hospital's Department of Critical Care Medicine, went down to the People's Hospital of Sandu Shui Autonomous County in June 2022.
Sandu is China's only autonomous county of ethnic Shui, and although the county hospital is the largest locally, it was limited in space and short of equipment and was able to conduct very few medical tests at the time when the expert team first came. Only 26 percent of the hospital's medical staff held mid-level or above professional titles.
"I felt the weight of my responsibility when I first came. As a member of the Communist Party, I think I'm obliged to shoulder the duty. All experts in the first and second groups of the team are Communist Party members," Fu said.
In the two years during the assistance, Fu and his colleagues helped the hospital establish a department of critical care medicine. He was more than willing to pass on his expertise to local medical workers.
Li Junxia, a local doctor, has filled her notebook with what she learned from Fu in the past two years.
"I would write down things new and important to me during rounds, such as when to wean a patient from the ventilator, and postoperative nutrition management. There's so much. For things I could not comprehend, I would review them when I'm back home," Li said.
With the help of Fu's team, the pediatricians in the hospital have all learned how to perform invasive ventilation on newborn infants, the radiology department is now able to provide magnetic resonance imaging services, and an oncology department has been established, freeing local patients from long and expensive travels to major cities for chemotherapies.
"A good doctor must be sympathetic and full of love, which means they dare to sacrifice and pay off. By doing so, I have stayed true to the original aspiration and mission of Communist Party members," Fu said.
Guizhou medical experts help capacity-building at grassroots hospital
