Chinese book boosts Seychelles healthcare

VICTORIA-Sun Zhanguo, a radiology expert from China, never thought that one day he would write a medical book that would prove to be quite a meaningful gift for the East African nation of the Seychelles.

Sun, 36, arrived on the archipelago-situated in the Indian Ocean-in September 2016 as part of a Chinese medical team that continues to help contribute to health service delivery in the nation which, for years, has faced a shortage of doctors.

In the Seychelles Hospital, the largest hospital in the country, a team of foreign medics drawn from China, Ukraine, Cuba and India, among others, have rolled up their sleeves to ensure that Seychellois have access to adequate healthcare services.

In recent years, the Seychelles government has prioritized the rigorous training of local doctors in a bid to build its healthcare capacity. An increasing number of Seychelles-born medics that have studied overseas have returned to the Seychelles Hospital for a three-year internship.

Sun noted that the absence of imaging data for common ailments in the Seychelles has hampered the ability of local medics to conduct in-depth research to find possible cures, so, he came up with the idea of building a database of patient cases for teaching purposes.

Over time, Sun had compiled a vast database covering common ailments that could be easily accessed by local health workers.

CEO of Seychelles Hospital Danny Louange, learned of the database Sun was keeping and suggested that Sun write a manual based on the data to provide diagnostics training for the local medical staff.

As a result, outside of his routinely busy work schedule, Sun spent a lot of his extra time and energy on the idea.

Then, in July this year, just two months before the end of his tenure and his return to China, the book, Seychelles Radiation Cases-Image Analysis and Diagnosis Essentials, was launched at a ceremony attended by the Chinese Ambassador to the Seychelles, Yu Jinsong, and the Seychelles Minister for Health, Jean-Paul Adam.

The manual details the history, distribution and treatment of common ailments on the Indian Ocean archipelago, and covers 400 diseases that are common in the Seychelles. The book also contains more than 1,400 high definition images.

The book went through extensive review by the Seychelles Health Research and Ethics Committee. Sun even managed to get Alexander Kovalsky, a famous professor of radiology at the Vinnystsia National Pirogov Memorial Medical University in Ukraine, to give the peer review of the book. Kovalsky liked the book so much that he agreed to write a foreword for it.

The book is the first medical imaging monograph in the Indian Ocean nation since it became independent, and also the first book written by a Chinese doctor since China started to send medical teams to the Seychelles in 1986.

Olena Kovalska, the director of the radiology department at the hospital speaks highly of the book. "This book will be very useful for new radiologists, for the orthopedic doctor, for specialists, for casualty doctors and for all people who are interested in radiology," Kovalska says.