Laboring conditions improving in Tibet

Yangzom, a 42-year-old obstetrics doctor in Maizhokunggar People's Hospital in Maizhokunggar County, had a busy day on June 24, 2011. Arriving at the hospital around 8 o'clock, she went to the delivery room to assist a pregnant woman named Gesang in her childbirth. The baby was born two and a half hours later. After exhorting the midwives to take care of the mother and baby, she went to obstetrics wards one after another. At 11:30 a.m., she started pregnancy check-up at the outpatient treatment room. After lunch, she went to Nyimajangra Village of Maizhokunggar to give training to the doctors in the village's health center. "It's normal for us to deliver one or two babies in the hospital per day, and once I delivered 6 babies in a day. Most pregnant women came from remote villages of Maizhokunggar." Yangzom said, "A total of 46 beds are offered in our hospital, among which 30 are for maternity department. Even though, it's not enough." Yangzom began to serve as an obstetrics doctor at Maizhokunggar People's Hospital in 1993. She remembered that few women of rural village came to the hospital to give birth before 2000 in Maizhokunggar, a farming and pastoral area. Traditionally babies were born at home, which caused high dystocia morbidity and infection rate owing to poor treatment and bad sanitation. Now more and more women came to give their childbirth at hospital. On Jan. 1, 2007, a new policy offered free treatment for to-be mothers in farming and pastoral areas. Pregnancy check-up and baby delivery is free of charge in county-level hospitals in Tibet. Considering their remote homes, free transportation from home to the village's health center is also free. Since then, local women seldom give birth out of Maizhokunggar People's Hospital. "There were only two doctors in the obstetrics and gynecology department before 2009. Now four doctors and two midwives are working here to meet the high demand. Meanwhile, medical facilities get better such as type-B ultrasonic machine. " Said Yangzom. "We go to wherever we are needed, remote houses or camps of women's home, and regardless of daytime or midnight. In the ages of no car provided, we went by tractors. Now we still go to the villages, not for treatment any more, but for training doctors in the health centers in case of no time for sending pregnant women to the county. We also pay return visits to the women at their home to see whether everything is OK." Yangzom told Xinhua. Majored in Tibetan traditional medicine, Yangzom graduated from Tibetan traditional medical college in 1993. "Eighteen years have passed, changes on childbirth come about in this farming and pastoral area, not only women's desire to give birth in hospital, but also their recognition of the modern medical treatment." Yangzom said.