Chinese doctors pull bullets in Mali
By Olivia Rosenman
In a dormitory building in Mali's capital Bamako, a team of doctors sit down each night to a typical Chinese meal. The 31 doctors, all from China's eastern Zhejiang Province, usually share three dishes; one meat, one vegetable and soup.
Until recently, dinner followed working days mostly occupied with the treatment and prevention of malaria. However, since conflict descended on Mali in the past year, the doctors are now treating victims of the surge in violence on a daily basis. They say they have grown used to the sound of gunfire and the daily arrival at the hospital of patients with gunshot wounds.
The situation in Mali only recently started to make world
headlines, but the conflict escalated almost a year ago, when in April 2012 President Amadou Toumani Toure was deposed and Tuareg rebels seized control of the northern part of the country.
The Mali hospital was opened in 2011 by a team of Chinese doctors in Mali. It was the first of 30 hospitals to be built by Chinese aid in Africa, devised in discussions in the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, and is the realization of a long relationship between doctors from China and Mali.
China began sending teams of doctors to Mali, where expertise and medical facilities are lacking, in 1968. According to the World Health Organisation, 17.6% of Malian children will die before they reach the age of five, and life expectancy of 53 years is among the lowest in the world. The Chinese doctors stay for stints of 500 days and work in cooperation with local doctors.
Tu Zhengliang, the head of Thoracic Surgery, posts images of the damage the war is inflicting on Mali's people on his Weibo blog. In one picture, an X-ray displays a bullet lodged in patient's ribcage somewhere close to the heart. Another shows the 3.5 centimeter bullet lying on gauze. The caption reads: "Today I carried out my first surgery on a patient with a bullet to the chest. In China, I don't really have the opportunity to treat gunshot wounds. But the bullet came out smoothly."
Another doctor, Jin Ge, told the Qianjiang Evening News, "Mali used to be one of the most stable countries in Africa. Before we arrived, we never could have imagined a situation like this".
The doctors admit the war has changed their work and life routine. The consulate advises them not to leave the dormitory in groups of less than four. These days they only venture as far as the local supermarket. But the relocation of the worst fighting to the country's north-east means that the gunfire they hear beyond their windows as they work is no longer constant.
That is not the case for another team of 15 Chinese doctors who until recently were working in the Central African Republic. The country has been engulfed by instability and violence for many years, fueled by insurgence and the proliferation of illegal weapons. Unlike Mali, however, the CAR has received little international attention and the situation is volatile. In a briefing to the Security Council on January 11, Margaret Vogt, the UN's special envoy in the CAR, called on the international community to engage "to pull the CAR from the brink".
The Chinese doctors stationed there were evacuated in early January, and have not been told when, or if, they can return. Wu Ronghan, head of the medical team, explained that in the days before they left the roar of gunfire was continuous. The team had buried all their valuable objects and many feared for their lives. Now having returned to China, Wu wants to go back: "I am waiting until the situation there stabilizes, so we can possibly return. The people there are waiting for our help".
Olivia Rosenman is a Masters of Journalism candidate at Hong Kong University who has lived in China for almost two years, and volunteered as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development, working for a small cerebral palsy organization in China's south-west. Her blog can be read at www.oliviarosenman.wordpress.com
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