Chinese health science popularization is deeply rooted in Africa
Correspondent: Hong Yuan, Li Fang
On the morning of May 13th,the outpatient hall of the China-Sierra Leone Friendship Hospital was bustling with people. The 26th CMT and the China-Sierra Leone Friendship Hospital jointly held a free cardiovascular health consultation event for “World Hypertension Day” on May 17th. At the event site, a bilingual (Chinese and English) health science popularization video made by the medical team was playing on the TV screen in a loop. Local people stopped to watch and had a lively discussion – this was the first time that systematic health science popularization content from China was deeply integrated into the medical practice of Sierra Leone.
“One less spoonful of salt every day brings more safety to your heart!” A 65-year-old local resident pointed at the salt restriction diagram demonstrated on the screen and sighed. To break through the barriers to the dissemination of medical knowledge, the medical team innovatively adopted a “animation dissection + real scene performance” model: a beating heart model visually demonstrated the causes of hypertension, taught the public step by step how to measure blood pressure correctly, and a situational drama recreated a family first aid scene and introduced traditional Chinese medicine treatment and dietary therapy methods for preventing hypertension. The Serbian medical staff simultaneously explained the key points in Creole and distributed the prepared hypertension health knowledge manual, converting professional terms into “health knowledge that can be understood and read”. On the other side of the outpatient hall, in the first aid skills training area, there were frequent rounds of applause around the cardiopulmonary resuscitation simulation trainees. Chinese and Serbian medical workers are jointly practicing cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the “First Witness Operation”, and members of the medical team are correcting the compression techniques hand in hand. Nurses from the Serbian side actively participated in the training one after another. “Mastering the ‘golden Four minutes’ first aid skills can bring more hope to life!” .
The Chinese medical team has been stationed at the China-Sierra Leone Friendship Hospital for a long time. Among them, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, as the counterpart hospital cooperation construction unit of the foreign aid medical team, has successively dispatched many experts from the departments of cardiology, otolaryngology and ophthalmology to carry out specialized counterpart cooperation construction, implementing a “dual-line offensive” of technical guidance and health education, and using China’s experience to assist in the prevention and treatment of diseases in Africa. This health campaign is a vivid practice of the “Health and Sanitation Campaign” under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. As a medical pioneer in building a China-Africa community with a shared future, the Chinese medical team in Serbia has taken health science popularization as a bond and technology empowerment as a path to turn the commitment of “enhancing Africa’s public health autonomy” in the “Eight Major Actions” of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation into practice. From sharing knowledge on disease prevention and control to training in first aid techniques, from “giving a man a fish” to “teaching a man to fish”, Chinese medical practitioners not only pass on the scale of blood pressure measurement, but also depict the depth of China and Africa’s joint efforts to build a community of health and hygiene. The bridge of connection built by Chinese medical practitioners with their techniques and warmth has enabled the “Chinese experience” of human health to take root and grow in the African soil.
