Rebuilding lives

Pupils of the First Wanquan Primary School in Yushu attend a Chinese language class on March 10. The city's primary and middle schools started their first full semester this year after the earthquake in 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]

The hospital now boasts a three-storey building covering 4,000 sq m and 30 beds. New mothers like Gartsok can enjoy a good rest with her babies in a room for new mothers. A doctor will visit her three times a day, checking both her health and the condition of the babies.

"I will recommend my sisters to deliver in the hospital, whether their medical conditions are normal or complicated," Gartsok said.

Yushu enjoys only four months of warm days in the whole year, with the highest temperature at about 20 C in the day. The rest of the days are cold and there are still no electrical or water heating systems in many homes.

"The inpatient rooms in the new hospital have air conditioners. It is much more comfortable to give birth here," Gartsok said.

With medical insurance, patients need to pay only about 20 percent of all medical costs. Gartsok, who went through c-section surgery and stayed in the hospital for eight days, paid no more than 1,000 yuan for the treatment, an amount similar to about one month's average income for a worker in the county.

Helping hands

A total of 2.6 billion yuan was donated to the Red Cross Society of Qinghai for rebuilding work after the quake, which formed a major part of the prefecture's rebuilding budget, figures from the Red Cross Society of China showed.

About 2.3 billion yuan of the donations came from the Red Cross Society of China. About 2 billion yuan of the funds for some projects remain under construction.

The donations covered a total of 94 reconstruction projects, among which 75 have been put into use.

Residents were in crucial need of healthcare services following the quake and 45 of all rebuilding projects are related to medical facilities such as hospitals in the cities and counties as well as clinics in the townships.

Yushu Prefecture People's Hospital in Yushu city is the largest hospital in the prefecture. The hospital's old building was leveled in the earthquake and it was rebuilt on the original site in 2010. With a 184 million yuan donation from the Aluminum Corporation of China, the hospital now includes a new building covering 32,300 sq m.

"The new facility is five times bigger than the old one. It's also the first time for us to have a real emergency department," said Liang Xiuyin, 40, head nurse of the emergency department.

Liang said the new hospital also boasts facilities like nuclear magnetic resonance and CT scanning machines. Before that, patients who needed related medical checks had to go to Xining, the provincial capital, which lies 800 km in the northeast of Yushu.

Liang said the prefecture opened its first airport in 2009.

"Before that, the only way to go to Xining was by bus, which took about 18 hours. In the 1990s, traveling by bus between the two places took two days," she said.

"We even didn't have an ambulance, just two minivans for the emergency cases. The only medical equipment in them were stretchers," she said.

"Hundreds of patients who were severely injured in the earthquake were lying in the tents in the garden of the hospital. The building collapsed and we could not provide better conditions."