This year marks the 60th anniversary of the occasion when China sent its first medical-aid team abroad. At the beginning of this year, the 11 members of the 19th medical team dispatched by China to the Central African Republic wrote a letter to Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee, explaining how they had served the local people, and expressing their resolve to help build a global community of health for all. The team arrived in the Central African Republic in June 2022, to start an 18-month medical-aid mission. Women of China is sharing with our readers a diary entry written by Wang Jia, a doctor of radiology, who is serving with China's current medical team in the Central African Republic.

I am Wang Jia, a doctor of radiology, and also a member of the 19th Chinese medical team, which has been dispatched to the Central African Republic. Today (May 31, 2023) is Day 352 of my work in this country.

Living conditions in the Central African Republic are hard. People here have long suffered from malaria. Due in part to the fact patients fail to receive treatment on a regular basis, the death rate caused by malaria is quite high. Our conditions for providing medical care here are limited, so we try to make some simple equipment on our own, and with which we can perform surgeries. By the end of May, our medical team had received more than 20,000 patients, had carried out 500-plus surgeries, and had provided accessory examinations to more than 3,000 patients.

We once treated a young patient, who had suffered with cough and a fever, but who did not feel better after he had received treatment in another hospital. The patient came to our team for help. We gave him a physical exam, and we adjusted the therapy based on the changes in his symptoms. His fever dissipated within a few days, and his cough was not as severe.

We have experienced many such examples. Every time I see a patient has been healed, and as I listen to their words of gratitude and look into their eyes, filled with the emotion of gratitude, I know our efforts have paid off. It is a doctor's duty to cure patients, to carefully complete each examination and/or medical operation. Only if we devote ourselves to healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, and only if we demonstrate medical proficiency and ethics in our missions, can we keep well the reputation of Chinese medical-aid teams abroad.

On March 19 this year, nine Chinese were killed during an attack at a gold mine in the Central African Republic. Two other Chinese were severely injured. Our team answered the call from the Chinese Ambassador to the Central African Republic, who asked us to participate in the rescue mission at the gold mine. We backed up each other, as we overcame the difficulties caused by shortages of medicine, equipment and power supply. After more than one week of good care, the two injured patients recovered steadily, before they were transferred to our motherland for further treatment.

At the beginning of this year, the 11 members of our team wrote a letter to General Secretary Xi. In that letter, we reported how we had been serving the people in the Central African Republic, and we expressed our resolve to help build a global community of health for all. We were excited when we received a reply from Xi. The General Secretary called on us to use our medical proficiency and ethics to benefit local people, and to better present China to the world through concrete actions, thus making greater contributions to the building of a global community of health for all. We were determined to complete well our medical-aid mission abroad.

As the saying goes, if you give someone a fish, you feed him/her for a day; but if you teach that person to fish, you will feed him/her for a lifetime. I focus on accumulating clinical experience during my daily work. I explain key points of disease-imaging diagnosis to local doctors, and I tell them the current, most-advanced imaging-diagnosis standards, which have been reached by common consent worldwide. I am often invited to participate in multidisciplinary consultations and/or discussions on difficult disease cases. I give advice and suggestions based on my work experience. I hope our medical team's members will help local doctors improve their skills, and to some extent, help advance the level of medical care in this country.

My colleagues and I are very busy every day. No matter how tired we are, we do not forget our mission is to share China's medical techniques and skills, as well as our administration practices, with our counterparts in other countries.

As written in General Secretary Xi's letter: "The Chinese people love peace and cherish lives, which is vividly illustrated by their efforts in international medical assistance." We will continue overcoming various difficulties, in work and life, and we will provide services to local people — not only by saving their lives, but also by building friendship with them, and especially by passing to them our love and care.

Photos Supplied by Wang Jia

(Women of China English Monthly August 2023 issue)