Landlocked Shanxi Province will send 50 medical teams from cities to poverty-stricken counties to provide medical services to rural residents this year.
The first batch of 15 medical teams left the provincial capital of Taiyuan to remote mountainous counties over the weekend, marking the start of a provincial medical-assistance-to-the-poor campaign.
Due to poor natural conditions, economic development has been slow in the 50 counties, and the local residents there are suffering from a shortage of both medicine and medical care.
According to the provincial government, the medical teams will go to the local hospitals and clinics in these counties to offer assistance of various forms to grassroots health centers.
Statistics show from 1997 to 2000, some 929 medical teams had been sent to the poor areas, where 1,246 health centers were set up, 20,000 medical professionals trained, and 7.45 million patients treated.
(eastday.com.cn 07/02/2001)
