Chongqing — "The Chinese medical team has been providing humanitarian medical services to Papua New Guinea for 16 years," said President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China during his first state visit to the country in November 2018.
The Chinese medical team, mentioned by President Xi, is from Chongqing. Entrusted by the central government, Chongqing has been sending the Chinese Medical Aid Team to Papua New Guinea independently since 2002.
For the one-year anniversary of Xi's visit to PNG, Chongqing sending the tenth medical aid team to PNG, as well as the tenth cycle of health exchange and cooperation between China and the South Pacific Region, Hualong News Net and Post Courier, the mainstream media of PNG, jointly launched a special report, "CQ Doctors' Foreign Aid Diaries".
What happened in the medical team? Let us take a look at their foreign aid diaries.
"Although I have returned from Papua New Guinea for many years, my current work is still closely related to foreign aid," said Dr. Zhou, in early November, to the Hualong News in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.
In recent years, a number of doctors from Barbados and Papua New Guinea have come to study at the Hospital. As an obstetrician and gynecologist who has traveled to PNG twice for medical aid, Zhou is naturally one of the mentors.
In 2002, entrusted by the former Ministry of Health, Chongqing sent the first medical team to PNG. It was the first Chinese medical team that China sent to the South Pacific region, including Zhou and nine others.
Zhou Qin and her foreign colleague.
When they first arrived in PNG, Zhou and her Chinese colleagues were placed in various departments at Port Moresby General Hospital. At that time, because every essential department had already had doctors from other countries' foreign aid medical teams as the backbone, these newcomers from China were not welcomed. Some of them even had difficulties in accessing the clinic.
When Zhou walked into the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, she was utterly shocked: because PNG encourages fertility, the birth rate is quite high here. The department had 24 obstetric beds in total, but they were never enough. Some mothers sat there and gave birth to their babies. Some even went into labor on their way to the hospital. As a result, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology was the busiest of all in the hospital, and many doctors were too busy to take a break.
At first, the department director was reluctant to give her work. As they got to know each other, the director tentatively let Zhou have an extremely common cesarean accompanied by an Australian doctor.
Zhou successfully did her job using her excellent skills. She made the wound as small as possible with little bleeding and finished the operation astoundingly fast. This was surely enough to impress Zhou's peers and patients.
As more operations coming in, the department leader let go of his previous "arrogance", allowing Zhou to grow into the backbone of the department. Local press reported extensively on Zhou, describing her as "an angel of love with magical hands".
"I was very proud when they all called me 'Dr. Qin'!" Zhou recalled.
In 2013, as the captain of the sixth foreign aid medical team, Zhou went to PNG for the second time. In addition to rampant malaria, dengue fever, and other infectious diseases, the rate of HIV infection was also very high in PNG.
"We had HIV carriers coming in almost every day," said Zhou. "However, as doctors, we don't get to choose our patients. We must help them regardless of their conditions."
Nevertheless, what happened on that day still gives Zhou a heart attack.
On November 6, 2013, Zhou had an accident during the operation. A drop of HIV carrier's blood spilled into her eyes.
"I had three operations on that day. The first one went well. During the second operation, however, a drop of blood spilled into my eyes because of the surgical assistant's momentary negligence. As a precaution, the hospital gave the patient a blood test with her consent.
A few days later, Zhou had the report in her hands. She felt her world was falling apart. "HIV POSITIVE." Zhou said, "this meant that I had a 3 percent chance of being infected with HIV."
After a series of expert consultation, Zhou decided to receive the HIV blocking treatment. In the following month, she had to take blocking drugs on a daily basis and to check her health condition regularly. Blocking drugs for HIV had serious side effects. In just a few days, Zhou suffered from trance, finger numbness, muscle twitching, etc. Despite all of that, Zhou insisted on practicing medical assistance in PNG.
A month later, Zhou was tested for HIV. The results proved that she was not infected. In order to give out the final diagnosis, Zhou had to do multiple stage reviews in one year after she stopped the drug.
At the beginning of 2014, Zhou returned home for inspection. Only then did she tell her husband about it.
"Although so many years have gone by, my feelings about PNG have never changed." Said Zhou, "One-time foreign aid leads to a life-long foreign aid bond. I'm proud to contribute my part in China's foreign-aid missions."
Source: Huang Yu | Hualong News