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Mothers and babies receive better care in Tibet
By Lin Jinghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-26 08:32
Lying in bed Tsering Drolma looked a bit tired. The day before she had given
birth to a baby girl. "It's my first child," said the 25-year-old Tibetan woman.
On her right side sat her husband and her mother-in-law. "I feel so grateful to
Doctor Tsoyung. She has helped me have this baby safely," she said.
Tsering Drolma is a farmer in Bujiu Township, some 40 kilometres away from
the hospital. The township is located in Nyingchi Prefecture in southern Tibet
Autonomous Region.
She suffered from high blood pressure in gestation not long after she became
pregnant.
"I chose to receive regular treatment in the maternity and child care
hospital in the town," she said. "I believed I could have better care in the
hospital."
Tsering Drolma said her daughter had been vaccinated twice within 24 hours of
birth - one was BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) against tuberculosis and another
against hepatitis B. She said she would leave the hospital for home in five days
with her new-born baby.
She would take with her a medical form, with which she would be able to get
her baby girl vaccinated against several infectious diseases at the township
clinic.
"I will take my daughter to a lamasery and let the master give her a name,"
she said.
Tsering Drolma shared the ward with two other Tibetan women, one of whom was
waiting for her baby to come. That night, 17 beds out of 28 were occupied.
"Many women here would like to give birth in the hospital, where they can
enjoy the privilege of medical treatment," said Doctor Tsoyung, who is also the
deputy director of the Maternity and Child Care Hospital, which was set up in
1992 in Bayi Town, Nyingchi Prefecture, with investments from Guangdong and
Fujian provinces.
"Not only do we offer services for the people in town, but also for farmers
and herdsmen around the region," said Tsoyung. "We especially take up serious
cases the township clinics are unable to deal with," she said.
According to Tsoyung, some 30,000 people reside in the town, with 160,000
scattered in 55 small towns and villages in the area of 117,000 square
kilometres.
"We received 188 pregnant women last year. In the first half of this year
there were 158," Tsoyung said.
It has long been a tradition for the Tibetan women to give birth at home, as
a result of the scarcity of medical care previously.
"To follow their mothers' way was only one of the reasons," Tsoyung said.
"The major problems have been poverty and poor communication and
transportation," she said, "although many of them still think it's shameful to
give birth in front of other people."
Forty years ago, the maternal and infant mortality rate was high in Tibet.
The maternal mortality rate was 5,000 per 100,000 and the infant mortality
rate was 430 per thousand, according to sources from the health department of
Tibet Autonomous Region.
"During the past two decades, we have tried to improve maternity and child
care by cutting down the maternity mortality rate and eliminating tetanus among
new-born babies," said Wang Jianpeng, director of the Maternity and Child Care
Section of Tibet Autonomous Region's Health Department.
In recent years, with a large investment from the central government and
co-operation between China's Ministry of Health and the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF), the maternal and infant mortality rates have decreased
sharply in the region.
The statistics from the health department of Tibet Autonomous Region show
that the maternal mortality rate decreased to 310.43 per 100,000 in 2004, while
the infant mortality rate dropped to 24.53 per thousand.
With health care for women and children spreading far and wide in the region
and with more financial aid from the central government, more and more local
Tibetan women come to hospitals to enjoy the privilege.
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