简体中文
If not for Guo Bin, a doctor-turned-official in a remote hilly village in east China's Jiangxi Province, the family of Li Shanquan would have fallen back into poverty due to the illness of their daughter.
The family, in Nongye Village in the county of Yudu, one of the last seven counties that cast off poverty last month in Jiangxi, got rid of poverty in 2016. However, less than two years later, Li Shanquan's eldest daughter began to have an unknown mass in her foot which grew bigger and bigger.
In January 2019, Guo Bin, deputy director of the Third People's Hospital of Yudu, applied to work in Nongye Village as a poverty alleviation official.
Taking off his "white gown," Guo quickly entered his new role and visited all impoverished households in the village in his first month, listening to their voices and needs.
"The lump has been growing for half a year. I immediately contacted an orthopedist in the county hospital and took her for further diagnosis," Guo said.
"It turned out to be an osteosarcoma," Guo said, adding that the young woman would have to be amputated if not timely treated. And the family was very likely to return to poverty for the high costs of treatment and subsequent caring.
Guo was unsure about whether the case can be treated at a county-level medical institution.
"Thanks to the targeted poverty alleviation policy, patients in Yudu can receive telemedicine from experts at the National Health Commission. And the third day after the telemedicine, senior doctors from People's Hospital in Beijing came to Yudu to operate on the 13-year-old," said Guo.
About 90 percent of the medical expenses were reimbursed and Li only paid around 1,000 yuan (about 140.7 dollars). She can now walk freely.
"I found that over half of the 31 poverty-stricken households in the village were poor due to illness, and the remaining also have various needs for healthcare services," Guo said, noting that creating good medical conditions is key to preventing them from returning to poverty.
Jiangxi, like many regions, has been expanding healthcare services to benefit more rural residents in recent years. The self-paid share of medical expenses for impoverished people in the province have been controlled at below 10 percent and Yudu County has established 217 family doctor teams to serve poor households.
"The treatment of diseases is closely linked to the treatment of poverty. The poverty alleviation policy allows the poor not to leave home for minor diseases and even a serious case can be treated within the county," Guo said. "Safeguarding the health of the people is to lay the foundations of the road toward a well-off society."
