Pairing-up scheme propels medical care in Tibet into higher level

LHASA -- Since 2015, hospital departments in relatively developed municipalities and provinces in China have paired up with their counterparts in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region to provide better medical services to residents on the plateau.

Different from the previous individual assistance, the department pairing-up scheme has proved more efficient in raising the medical level of local hospitals.

Xuan Hanqing, a physician in the department of urology of Shanghai-based Renji Hospital, began his work in the city of Xigaze with an emergent surgery of ureteral calculi.

As a member of the eighth batch of Shanghai's medical team to Tibet, he has been tasked with improving the medical level and service of the department of urology at Xigaze People's Hospital.

In the meantime, Sun Shuxue, head of Beijing's seventh medical team to Tibet and a doctor with Beijing Friendship Hospital, has been coordinating high-quality medical resources in Beijing over the past three years, increasing the number of assisted departments in Lhasa People's Hospital from four to nine.

Orthopedics, neurology, respiratory medicine, neurosurgery, and general surgery are the five departments assisted.

Thanks to increasing medical talents and resources, the hospital has introduced many new therapeutic projects such as correction of hip deformity in children. Over 30 technologies were the first to be applied in Tibet.

A large number of local doctors, with the help of assisting experts, have independently carried out various complex operations such as stent implantation for acute myocardial infarction.

Learning from doctors from Shaanxi province, Nima Tsering, doctor of the emergency department of Pulan County People's Hospital in Ngari prefecture, has mastered appendectomy, breast benign tumor resection, closed thoracic drainage, and other common surgical operations.

By the end of June, seven batches of more than 1,300 medical professionals from all over China have trained more than 2,400 local doctors of different levels for Tibet. At the same time, hospitals in Tibet sent 1,800 local medical personnel to their pairing-up provinces and municipalities for further study.

By the end of 2021, more than 400 serious diseases could be treated without leaving Tibet, and more than 2,400 moderate diseases could be treated without the patients having to leave their city. Moreover, the average life expectancy in Tibet rose from 68.2 years in 2015 to 72.19 years.