Note: We have a video version of this article that recaps our entire trip to Gansu. You can access this video on Youtube here. While the general content of both versions are similar, our article will share some more stories and details about the kids we visited.
In June, we traveled to rural Linxia in Gansu, China, along with two doctors and two volunteers from the Beijing SmileAngel Children’s Hospital to provide medical checkups for kids with cleft lips and cleft palates and to conduct family visits to check in on the kids’ status and health.
Linxia is an autonomous prefecture for the Hui people, a large minority ethnic group that consists of Chinese Muslims. Because of certain genetic traits and interfamilial marriages among the Hui (since they are technically not allowed to marry people outside of their ethnic group), the rate of cleft lips and palates is extremely high in Linxia.
The first part of our trip consisted of providing medical checkups for kids with cleft palates and cleft lips. We worked with the Linxia Rural Medical Center, using their space as the site for medical checkups. Kids ranged anywhere from 6 months to 13 years old. Many families, who could not afford to pay for their kids’ medical checkups, had to wait for this opportunity to visit a doctor. As a result, some families traveled from distant provinces, even from Tibet, to meet with us. In total, we met around fifty to sixty kids at the hospital.
For kids that had received surgery, Dr. Jing and Dr. Zhang checked on the recovery process. Because proper medical treatment and care is less important in rural areas, many parents often do not treat the wound post-surgery correctly, often resulting in infection or allergic reactions. These situations also occur because kids in rural areas tend to have weaker immune systems. For kids who plan on receiving surgery or need a second surgery for their cleft palate, the doctors provide recommendations for next steps.
Dr. Jing also administered Botox for one of the kids. Since the child has a cleft lip and palate, Dr. Jing must ensure that the nose does not collapse due to the defect in the lip and palate. However, because the kid was only two years old, the doctors could not provide him with anesthesia, so the procedure was extremely painful for him.
We also handed out the backpack packages our volunteers made at the May event and other personal care products, totaling over four hundred items. Since kids in rural areas often can not afford good-quality school supplies and materials, these packages are essential in supporting their education and personal well-being.
While we were at the hospital, a little boy and his grandma had arrived at the hospital. Since the boy had burned himself and as a result, could not walk well, the grandma wanted to get her grandson’s leg checked out by a doctor. However, after learning that the visit would cost 150RMB (21USD), she refused to pay and planned to leave without seeing a doctor. Upon learning of this incident, Lantern Foundation decided to pay for the boy’s medical visit fees, which allowed the doctors at the medical center to treat the burn.
We also conducted four family check-ins in Linxia. These visits involved ensuring the children’s good health and assessing the families’ living conditions. One family we visited was the Ma Family. The father, Guo Shuanlong, suffers from liver cirrhosis. His eldest son, Ma Guoyun (!0), is malnourished; his second child, Ma Yunhai (8), has leukemia, and his youngest son, Ma Zheng (6), has a cleft lip and palate. The main challenge the Ma family experiences is covering the medical expenses for treatment for the family. When we visited, we learned that Ma Zheng had had a cold for a long duration of time that the family had neglected to treat. Because of his illness, his immune system became weak, causing Dr. Zhang to worry that Ma Zheng will not be able to receive his cleft palate surgery in Beijing soon.
Another family we visited was the Ma Family (Ma is an extremely common last name for the Hui people). All three children in the family have cleft lips palates. Since the eldest son, Ma Hailong (15), was at school, we only had the opportunity to meet the two daughters of the family, Ma Lan (8) and Ma Xiulan (6). Ma Lan and Ma Xiulan had only received the cleft lip surgery and are awaiting to receive the cleft palate surgery. However, because they are underweight, Dr. Zhang said that the two girls would not be able to receive surgery yet because they are afraid the surgery area will not heal properly if they do not have enough nutrition.
Following our trip, we got in touch with volunteers in Gansu and have been sending monthly financial support to the families we visited. Our volunteers help us purchase food such as eggs and milk to provide increased nutrition for the kids. The funds also go toward their regular medical checkups and any school fees. Our volunteers help us ensure that the money goes directly toward bettering the kids’ wellbeing.
Through our trip to Gansu, we had the opportunity to not only meet kids in rural Linxia but also understand the healthcare system challenges in rural China through our discussions with doctors. The importance of good healthcare policies is unquestionable — as we work to help the kids in rural China through financial and material contributions, we must also deepen our understanding of the governmental policies that create inequities in medical care and causes of the health disparities between rural and urban China.
