By Diana Xiao / Jun Ashley | Project Manager
Dear Donors,
In April this year, a news story posted on wenxuecity.com (a Chinese news website) came to our attention. The story was about a very ill boy who was found to be living with his mother in a rented home without receiving any medical treatment. His mother, after two years of struggling to try to get her son the medical care he needed, could no longer afford the medical expenses. According to the story, the boy’s father had left them because he did not want to bear responsibility.
We realized that the boy was Yiming, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma when he was 10 months old. A Life A Time had sent RMB 10,000 to support the boy’s chemotherapy in October 2016 but had not since received any update on his progress. Thanks to this online story published, Yiming received additional donations and was taken to a hospital to get treated. Unfortunately, on July 5th, our volunteer in China reported that Yiming had left us.
Following this article, we saw some postings by readers questioning why the child did not receive the necessary medical attention given that China now purports to provide certain medical care free of charge. One of our volunteers, based on our past experience from helping the needy Chinese children, wrote an article for A Life A Time’s July Newsletter to help people understand the limitations of the current medical system in China (especially for patients from rural areas), with the hope that more people like you can join charitable activities to help people, particularly children, in need. Although we have seen many improvements in regulations related to medical care in China in recent years, there are still many obstacles.
· First, current medical care coverage is very limited by where the patient wants to be treated. For example, access to care at local hospitals is now usually available for most Chinese without charge. However, skills and resources at each hospital vary dramatically by region, and frequently hospitals in rural areas lack the skills and materials necessary to treat serious cases. That leaves hospitals in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai as the only ones that can accept patients with certain serious illnesses, and coverage for sick people from outside these regions is limited to a percentage of the total costs.
· Second, when a non-local patient wants to be treated at a hospital in the big cities, deposits are often required before treatments can begin. Some reimbursement may be available, but typically it can only be claimed when the patient and his/her family submit their expenses back in their hometown. Patients with financial difficulties often cannot afford the deposits.
· Third, medicine is an additional expense that is not a part of hospital treatment, and must be paid for upfront. Some medicine can be very expensive and is not covered at all.
· Fourth, patients and families have to be able to afford the travel and living expenses while being treated at non-local hospitals.
We have seen from our experiencing working at A Life A Time that families with financial difficulties have in some cases had to give up their sick children when they lacked financial assistance. We hope this additional information will help all of you understand better why there are still so many ill children in China who need your help. That being said, as Chinese regulations and medical care continue to improve, we truly hope that one day organizations like ours will not be needed anymore. We also want to use this opportunity to thank you all on behalf of the children who have received your support.
Sincerely,
A Life A Time Foundation
By Jun Ashley | Project Manager
By Jun Ashley | Project Manager
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
