Volunteers provide medical services to remote areas

Thirty years of volunteer medical services are being celebrated by a group of doctors in Shanghai and the people who use their help to stay healthy.

The team of medical doctors from Fudan University, Shanghai Medical School has traveled nearly 350,000 kilometers to visit 77 hospitals, autonomous regions and municipalities in 39 towns of 23 provinces to serve 120,000 local residents over the past 30 years.

The program grew from one team to several teams at each service held over the summer break.

Dr. from Fudan University Children’s Hospital. Wang Dahui said that the program creates an opportunity to see the huge imbalance in medical resources between developed cities and remote areas.

“We met a child with a complex thin bone fracture in Jianhe, Guizhou Province, and his parents had planned to abandon treatment due to the medical expenses and uncertainty of local doctors about healing the child,” he said.

“We communicated with the parents and assisted with the surgery at the local hospital to ensure the child was successfully treated.”

Dr Zhu Wenqing from Fudan University Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital said he encountered a child with a corneal dermoid tumor that seriously damaged the child’s vision.

With local medical facilities limited, his team arranged a green channel to transport the boy to Shanghai for a successful corneal transplant surgery.

Doctors are described as “angles in white” by local people.

Members of the service team said their aim is to allow people living in very remote areas to also access the best medical resources through free medical consultations, lectures and demonstrations.

The team also established remote consultation mechanisms based on the internet and expert workshops with local facilities to provide long-term and regular service.

Many practices and operations that are very common for Shanghai doctors are unknown to local doctors. Therefore, the service team focused specifically on training local staff during their visit.

The medical team also benefits from their visits.

Dr Chen Tianhui from EENT hospital said he witnessed patients with nematodosis, a parasitic disease, in Xiji, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and collected important materials to support his research.

“Collecting and analyzing these patients’ eye information and artificial intelligence, my team developed a calculation method for intraocular lens power targeting Chinese patients and submitted it to a leading medical journal for evaluation,” he said.