On March 15, 2023, the signing ceremony for paired aid between PUMCH and the Togtoh (Tuoketuo) County Hospital, Inner Mongolia as well as the seeing-off ceremony for the first batch of aiding PUMCHers in 2023 were held in the multi-functional hall of the teaching complex. PUMCH, the Togtoh County People’s Government and the Togtoh County Hospital signed the agreement for paired aid. The paired aid provided to Inner Mongolia over the years speaks volumes about PUMCH’s sense of social responsibility and mission as a large public hospital and also represents the fruitful explorations made by PUMCH to perform the tasks of medical aid provision laid out by the government, implement the 14th Five-year Planning of PUMCH, and extend more quality healthcare resources to lower-tiered hospitals.

On June 30, 2010, PUMCH officially kicked off its paired aid to the Togtoh County Hospital in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and since then it has sent 30-odd PUMCHers in 14 batches to aid the hospital there. Fourteen years later, PUMCH sent another batch to the county hospital, composed of chief physician Zhao Lin, Deputy Director of the Department of Oncology; deputy chief physician Ye Xin, Assistant Director of the Department of General Surgery; deputy chief physician Ren Chang of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; deputy chief physician Liu Yimin of the Department of Nuclear Medicine; deputy chief physician Lu Xin of the Department of Orthopedics Surgery; and attending physician Meng Qingyu of the Department of Radiotherapy. They were eager to exert themselves to help bring more quality healthcare resources to lower-tiered communities.

▲PUMCH Vice President Du Bin was delivering a speech

Vice President Du Bin stated that PUMCH would step up its aid and send more backbone staffers for the program; it would also diversify the means used, for example, making full use of the Internet for remote consultations, lectures and ward rounds, etc.

▲Han Quanfen, Party Secretary of the Health Commission of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, was delivering a speech

Han Quanfen, Party Secretary of the Health Commission of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, said that 14 years of aid not only boosted medical expertise and capabilities of the recipient hospital but also changed and shaped their mindset, thinking, status and medical ethics. The recipient hospital was not the only beneficiary. The aid has also benefited the health of people in border areas inhabited by ethnic minorities as well as the high-quality healthcare development of Hohhot at large.

The County Magistrate Gao Zheng expressed his heartfelt gratitude to PUMCH for its support over the years. He said that Togtoh County would particularly cherish the paired aid and leverage it to accelerate the development of its medical service system with the purpose of building the Togtoh County Hospital into a regional general hospital that can effectively address people’s difficulties in accessing medical care.

“We would surmount all difficulties and fulfill our responsibilities to the paired aid program, doing our utmost to deliver what we have committed ourselves to,” said Zhao Lin, one of the members aiding Inner Mongolia.

Thanks to the continuous aid of PUMCH over the past 14 years, the Togtoh County Hospital has become the largest county-level general hospital with the best medical resources and strongest capabilities in emergency care. In the relay race of delivering quality healthcare resources to lower-tiered communities, another batch of PUMCHers picked up the baton, pledging to work hard with their Inner Mongolian peers to help lay a solid foundation of health for the Chinese modernization endeavors.

Written by Chen Xiao

Photographed by Sun Liang

Translated by Liu Haiyan

Edited by Wang Yao