THE SUBSTITUTION DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AIMED AT
CONSTRUCTING THE “GREEN CHANNEL OF LIFE”
--Achievements yielded by the People’s Government of Longling County of the Chinese Yunnan Province and the First Special Region of the Union of Myanmar through medical cooperation and the substitution development project
I. Background of the Substitution Development Project
Longling County in western Yunnan is separated by the Nujiang River from the First Special Region (FSR) in Kokan of the Shan State of Myanmar, and shares with Myanmar national boundary line of 19.71 kilometers.
In March 1998, the People’s Government of Longling County dispatched officials to visit the FSR of the Shan State, during which the Chinese officials investigated the situation of poppy cultivation and the economic and social development of the area, and drafted the substitution development project after they came back to China. In July 1998, officials of Longling County revisited the FSR, and signed agreement with the FSR Government to carry out the substitution development project based on medical cooperation, and Longling Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Hospital was appointed to take responsibility in organizing and implementing the project. On October 1, 1998, the Guo Long Pharmaceutical Company jointly set up by Longling People’s Hospital and the FSR of the Shan State was put into operation to annually produce 580,000 bottles (500 ml/bottle) of infusion fluid. Product of the company sold remarkably well in the northern Myanmar market.
II. Outstanding Achievements Yielded by the Substitution Development Project
A. Introduction to the FSR People’s Hospital of the Shan State (entity for carrying out the substitution development project)
The FSR People’s Hospital of the Shan State was formally put into operation on October 1, 1998. At the initial phase of the project, the FSR Government of Myanmar furnished over 1,000 m2 of land and a number of medical instruments, and the Longling TCM Hospital sent over capable professionals, management people, necessary equipment and medicines to start up the hospital. Through sincere cooperation and arduous pioneering work in the following 6 years, the FSR People’s Hospital gradually gained its fame in the public health circles of the Kokan Special Region. At the present, it is the largest regular hospital of the FSR because of its relatively complete medical facilities and the most capable medical professionals. In 1998 when the cooperative project got started, the 600 m2 of houses provided by the Myanmar government were ones with simple structures, all of which are now dilapidated and could no longer meet the needs of the hospital development and the medical services. On November 5, 2003, Mr. Guo Zilai, the Vice Magistrate of the People’s Government of Longling County of China headed a delegation to visit the FSR. Through consultation between the Chinese delegation and leaders of the FSR Government, a decision was made to pull down the old houses and then reconstruct the hospital buildings on the same site, while an overall planning would be re-drafted for the hospital. Based on the needs of the hospital’s medical work, a brick-concrete building consisting of 3 storeys (partially 4 storeys), 11 rooms and with a gross floor space of 1,505.96 m2 would be constructed, and the construction of the new building would be exclusively funded by the Myanmar side. Construction of the hospital’s new building was accomplished on July 24, 2004. Rooms for medical uses in the new building measured over 2,000 m2, and the number of beds increased from 33 to 60. The Chinese side had invested over RMB 100,000 for purchasing medical equipment of the hospital, and for improving facilities of its operation room.
B. Social benefits yielded by the project
Through 6 years’ arduous pioneering work and sincere cooperation, the substitution development project of the FSR People’s Hospital of the Shan State has played an indispensable role in developing the FSR’s social undertakings, and thus has far-reaching influences. It has set up the image of the People’s Hospital in the hearts of the FSR people, who believe the FSR People’s Hospital has the best medical skills of the area, and choose to send the patients to the hospital, while their old conception that “opium would cure all diseases” is gradually being changed. When confronted with difficult or serious cases, the local doctors would transfer their patients to the People’s Hospital. Thanks to the reinforcement of planned childhood vaccination and preventative injection for the susceptible population, infectious diseases in the area have been brought under control to a certain extent. Practice of the new midwifery and publicity of health care knowledge among the perinatal women have helped curb the mortality of babies, infants, pregnant and lying-in women. Since its establishment, the hospital has diagnosed a total number of 61,729 patients, hospitalized 2,207 patients, performed about 1,000 large, medium-size or small operations, and exercised medical or psychological rehabilitation for over 500 drug addicts. It has rescued 200 poisoned people, saved the lives of 623 seriously ill patients. The ratio of successful rescues reached 92.68%, the curative or improvement ratio reached 90.76%, and the diagnostic accordance ratio for the incoming and outgoing patients has reached 97%. In line with the WHO-recommended program, the hospital has performed planned vaccination for 1,057 local children in the right age spans, provided other vaccines to 2,059 persons, and publicized marital and MCH (mother and child care) knowledge among 1,500 people.
C. The substitution development project has substantially helped the international anti-drug campaign.
By choosing Kokon (of FSR) and Laocai, which is located in the hinterland of the “Northern Golden Triangle”, as the site of the substitution development project, we aim at directly participating in the anti-drug actions and substantially helping the international anti-drug campaign. During the period when the FSR Government promised to the international community to eradicate drugs, the FSR People’s Hospital actively publicized among the local people how drugs ruin people’s health and souls. It’s worth mentioning that in 2003 when poppy cultivation was completely banned in the FSR, the hospital had played an active role and yielded outstanding achievements in rehabilitating the drug addicts, and had reduced or exempted medical costs of RMB 200,000 for the former poppy farmers who diverted to cultivate the substitute plants in the area. The hospital had also assisted the FSR Government to launch publicity campaigns among over 50,000 people under the theme of “keep off drugs and treasure life” and distributed 50,000 copies of anti-drug publicity leaflets. It had provided medical treatment or psychological rehabilitation to over 500 drug addicts, offered preventive helps or consultations of the STD (AIDS inclusive) to over 200 people. Meanwhile, the hospital has assumed responsibility for quality inspection of medicines and training and examination of the FSR medical workers. In the summer of 2003 when concentrated efforts were made to fight against the SARS, the FSR Government ordered all institutions to join efforts in the anti-SARS work. The director of the FSR People’s Hospital joined the Anti-SARS Expert Group, and worked shifts at the FSR Public Health Division, during which he took 2 emergency missions to check the cause of deaths. The hospital also dispatched medical workers to participate in the anti-SARS work. In November 2003 when malignant malaria struck areas along the Salween River in Kokan, the hospital immediately sent doctors to the medical team that worked in the malaria-stricken areas. Because of its outstanding contributions to the FSR public health work, the FSR Government awarded the FSR People’s Hospital with the honorary title of “Advanced Medical Unit”. Experts from the Ministry of Public Health of Myanmar who inspected the hospital in the same year had highly praised the planned immunization and AIDS prevention and treatment work of the hospital.
The FSR People’s Hospital has initiated the AIDS prevention and treatment work of the area mainly by publicizing AIDS-related knowledge, which helps curb the HIV propagation through the channels of sexual contacts and drug abuse. Its effective work bears far-reaching significance and has exerted indispensable influence in the local area, which is the “blind spot” in the implementation of the AIDS Prevention and Treatment Program of Myanmar 2003-2005.
D. Carrying forward the “Good Neighbor and Friendship” policy and safeguarding world peace
Implementation of the substitution development project has played an active role in strengthening the intra-government friendly ties as well as fostering exchanges and cooperation in other fields between both countries. In the last years, government of both sides had exchanged visits, and developed consensus in cooperation and developing the cross border trade, transportation and projects in other fields, all of which have paved the way for future bilateral cooperation, and contributed to the construction of the “China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone”.
China and Myanmar are geographically linked with one another, and share friendly, good neighbor relations as well as stability in the border areas, which bear vital importance to the economic and social development of both countries. The substitution development project has helped to foster and safeguard world peace, and has thus drawn increasing attention from the international community. Over 10 of the world’s key newspapers have carried news coverage on the project, the major ones include the People’s Daily (overseas edition) of China, the World Daily of the Philippines and the Da Gong Bao of Hong Kong.
III. Perspective Advancements of the Substitution Development Project
In the FSR’s urban Kokan area, there are presently a total number of 8 private hospitals and over 100 private clinics, and some 180 private clinics are serving the rural areas. Basically profit-oriented, those private medical institutions hardly show interest in social welfare undertakings such as prevention of plague and treatment of the plague victims. By using its equipment, and for the sake of humanitarianism of healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, the FSR People’s Hospital has assumed the arduous task of rescuing the critical and seriously ill patients, prevention of plagues and treatment of plague victims, and treatment and rehabilitation of the drug addicts. To ease the FSR’s shortage of doctors and medicines from the grassroots level, help the local people access medical services, change its situation of retarded treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, and push forward the substitution development project so as to better serve the local people’s needs for health care, we appeal to the international community and the world’s drug abuse control institutions for helps to the project in terms of funding, equipment, medicines and technology. It is our wish that the FSR People’s Hospital, which is the carrier of the substitution development project, could be developed within the next 3 to 5 years into a comprehensive hospital that conforms to the international standards. By using the FSR People’s Hospital as the platform, the rural private clinics as the “web pages”, let us join forces to build the “wideband networks” of medical care and public health. The FSR People’s Hospital may provide guidance to the rural private clinics in terms of medical and public health technology, train their primary-level medical workers and enhance their technological level so as to consolidate the basis of the network. Based on the public health and disease prevention networks, efforts will be made to disseminate knowledge of disease prevention and treatment among the broad masses, so as to enhance their health awareness and construct the “green channel of life” for the FSR people.
Since the establishment of the hospital, we have hosted 17 training sessions that trained 210 primary-level medical workers. Introduced by the People’s Government of Longling County, the Myanmar side has sent 6 people to study at the Medical School of Baoshan Municipality.
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