Women’s Health: Free Check-Ups
Women’s health in rural China typically focuses on pregnancy and birth control. Except for reproductive-health reasons, women go to see a doctor only when they get seriously ill – not earlier.
That health checkups for women can prevent diseases is widely unknown in today’s rural China. Now, time has come for preventive healthcare to be introduced to women in some rural communities in Gansu Province. Amity has provided funds and expertise for over 16,000 women in Lintao County to be screened for health problems and treated, mostly free of charge, if irregularities are found.
During the first phase of the project, local health personnel were trained. The check-ups followed in the second phase. Getting out the word to the women turned out to be a challenge in itself. Banners had to be hung up in towns and villages, and health workers were sent out to the villages to speak at public meetings.
The efforts paid off. Almost half of the women screened were diagnosed with women-specific health problems.
Most of them received treatment afterwards, among them Sun Yilan (picture above), an 80-year-old woman from a village near Lintao. “I didn’t know before that there was a cure for my problems,” said the mother of four children when asked why she had never gone to see a doctor. She feels much better after undergoing surgery last June. All she had to pay was RMB 150 for an operation costing RMB 2500 (US$ 365).
Whether the women of Lintao County will continue to get check-ups in the future remains to be seen. Ideally, the health authorities will continue to invest in preventive healthcare services. But local health experts already say that people in the area are often too poor to pay their medical bills, let alone preventive measures.
