Hospital gets helping hands from across the waves

Sansha People's Hospital, the only full-scale medical institution on remote Yongxing Island, is meeting its increasing medical needs with a little help from its friends.

Given limited medical capacity, the hospital conducts preliminary treatments for patients requiring further care before they are transferred to major hospitals on Hainan Island.

To help meet the growing medical demands, young doctors and nurses have been temporarily transferred from Hainan Island to work at the hospital.

These young medics, including nurse Li Chunhong, 33, generally stay for about six months before returning to Hainan.

One of the tasks for Li and her medical colleagues is to introduce the islanders to the correct method of using antibiotics. "Some of the local residents tend to abuse antibiotics," Li said.

Xiang Dao, 32, a male doctor, said: "It is our duty to explain to them that antibiotics should be prescribed by doctors."

The hospital, built in the 1980s, has developed rapidly in recent years and the three-story building has an outpatient department as well as wards and rooms for those requiring an overnight stay.

A new program providing more medical equipment, financed by the central government, is likely to be in place before Sansha celebrates its fourth birthday in July, according to the city government.

The hospital has become a medical hub and provider of medicine to other islands and reefs nearby.

Huang Hongbo, chief of the resident committee on nearby Bei Island, dropped by the hospital for medicine to fight a heavy cold. Lack of medicine and medical facilities on islands such as Huang's was mirrored by his asking doctors for ten large packets of a traditional Chinese medicine.

Niu Mu, 30, a male doctor who previously worked in Haikou, said the first batch of medical staff that arrived in the 1980s endured a range of difficulties, such as a lack of electricity, medicine, running water and sometimes even food was not too abundant.

"These days, we enjoy fresh vegetables and meat, and the dishes served (at the canteen) are almost the same as those on Hainan Island. We have desalinated water for a good shower," Niu said.

Li said that even though the island is small, "we are all very satisfied with what we have and we believe it is a great honor to serve the island dwellers".