Matters of the heart out in the countryside

It is important that more people know about the standard procedure for conducting CPR, which starts by calling for help and judging whether it is needed, he says. He hopes more people will be able to carry out CPR strictly following the guidelines.

Xu came to the township sitting on the Jinsha River, an upstream tributary of the Yangtze River, with a group of about 50 medical professionals from big hospitals in big cities on July 9. They received 1,126 visits that day.

They were attending a free clinic activity run by the Chinahearts Organizing Committee of Beijing. About 800 volunteers were invited to Dechen Tibet autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province, to which the township belongs, to provide the service from July 7 to 14.

It was the 11th year that the committee has organized such free clinic activities in ethnic Tibetan areas in Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu provinces and the Tibet autonomous region.

It was not the first time that medical experts from cities coming to Tuoding township to give CPR training. However, Xu noticed that local medical workers could yell out some words, sometimes wrongly though, but lacked the requisite skills.

His aim was not only to interpret the technical details and provide demonstrations, but also to let local medical workers practice and gain experience so they would remain calm in real emergencies.

However, it requires repeated training and practice to fully master the skill, and Xu acknowledged that day time was limited for a detailed lecture and one-on-one coaching.

Two days after Xu's short training session, though, a local doctor, Amei, with a mannequin Xu's team donated to the health center, independently gave CPR training to doctors of another township in the prefecture.

Amei, deputy director of Tuoding township's health center, says she is determined to work with her colleagues to teach basic CPR skills in the countryside, a large part of which is hidden deep in the mountains, with scattered villagers who are difficult to get to.