Bayer Schering Pharma supports special training for doctors in Tibet

It’s hard to visit a doctor in rural Tibet. With better local health care, there’s less need for costly trips to distant medical centres: 40 Doctors from across Tibet are preparing to go back to their rugged rural clinics armed with new skills and techniques gained through training sponsored in part by Bayer Schering Pharma.

They’re in the middle of a special training lasting two to three month at the brand new University of Tibet campus, which was erected for 56 million Euro in the eastern suburbs of Tibet’s capital Lhasa. The training is part of the “Go West” cooperation project between the Chinese Ministry of Health and Bayer Schering Pharma. The university is taking innovative steps to bring distance learning to Lhasa, for example by employing “telemedicine” to transmit medical courses to the university from the West China Centre of Medical Sciences in Sichuan.

The Chinese Ministry of Health’s goal is by means of the “Go West” program to train 10,000 doctors in county hospitals within five years in 332 poor counties across its less developed and rural western flank. In 2007 “Go West” was first kicked off at the University of Lanzhou, Gansu. Now in its third year, the program has now included Tibet as the eighth province to participate in “Go West”.

The program supported by Bayer Schering Pharma pursues three important objectives: To improve the ability of doctors in county hospitals to diagnose and treat diseases, to facilitate access to modern health resources in the countryside, and to reduce the economic burden on farmers caused by having to travel to doctors in distant urban centres.

A great number of doctors have successfully completed the courses, and improved their theoretical knowledge on mainly pediatrics, gynecology and obstetrics as well as modern medical technology. Several weeks clinical practice at the teaching hospital completed the training session. More than 600 county hospitals of the West are covered. Each of them cooperates with a leading hospital in its region.

“Go West’s” priority on the Ministry of Health’s agenda is underscored by the dignitaries sent to the inauguration ceremony of the first training class in Tibet: present were Zhang Zongjiu, director general of the ministry’s Medical Service Regulation bureau, De Ji, vice president of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and other ranking health officials.

Mr. Zhang says that “Go West” is in full alignment with China’s development efforts in the West. In Tibet the need for additional medical training and resources is clear. The aim is to boost the ability for doctors to diagnose and treat common rural diseases and get them further into the field. Boosting capabilities at county hospitals is a real need, as is building teams of doctors who can reach out to people in the remote countryside and deliver a high level of medical treatment.

Bayer Schering Pharma Global Corporate spokesman Oliver Renner told an audience of 300 at the inauguration that the firm is committed to China as one of its most important markets. “Our sights are set on a long-term sustainable development,” Renner said.