General Clinical Care

The regions of Yunnan in which China Cal operates are some of the poorest in both China and the world. Quite often, when our China Cal teams enter a rural village, it represents the first time in years that any kind of fully trained medical professional has visited the area. While our focus is on heart disease and high blood pressure, we often face long lines of patients with a multitude of ailments, many of which are chronic and have been untreated for years. We do our best to offer diagnoses and treatment to all comers, and your donations will help us fill out our staff with trained doctors and nurses who are better able to accommodate those who come to China Cal teams with non cardiac related health emergencies. If you donate $2000 or more, you can sponsor a student intern to attend a three week internship with China Cal doctors in rural Yunnan villages. See internships.

In 2011, China Cal received recognition from Yunnan provincial television for its contribution.  China Cal doctors focus particularly on hypertension in the villages.

Pediatric Screenings and Grants for Kids

In the United States and in other Western countries, virtually all newborns are screened for congenital heart defects at birth and during the first year of life. If untreated, these children are likely to die before they reach adulthood. In developed countries, once these defects are detected, surgeries are scheduled and performed and the child is able to lead a normal, healthy life. In many areas of rural China, however, the medical infrastructure needed to detect these fatal congenital heart defects is unavailable. China Cal has screened thousands of children in rural villages where we offer free screening to every child in the area. These screening missions gives children who were previously undiagnosed the opportunity to undergo curative treatment and enjoy a healthy life.

The families of rural children with heart disease are very poor. Incomes range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per year.  Once we find a child with a treatable heart defect, we discuss this with the family and offer them the opportunity to apply for financial assistance either from our own funds or from government plans or from private foundations and other charities.  In no circumstance where we have discovered a treatable heart defect has the child not received appropriate surgical intervention because of lack of funds.  The chart below shows the children we helped last year (2011):

Our young patients and their families are particularly appreciative of our efforts.  Read this letter from the father of Little Dai.

Your donations will allow us to continue our work both in screening children around Yunnan and in helping them obtain the surgeries that will save their lives. $3000 sponsors a child’s operation.

Hypertension Research

30 years ago, high blood pressure was rare in rural China and the prevalence of strokes and heart attacks was much lower than it is in the West. However, under China’s rapid urbanization, the prevalence of high blood pressure and heart disease have quickly risen and are now the leading causes of death in China. While China develops its modern economy around urban centers, it is easy to forget that health problems are not unique to those areas and exist in rural regions as well. Many of the risk factors for hypertension and cardiovascular disease, such as smoking and a high sodium diet, are just as common in rural as they are in urban areas. China Cal works to document this growing epidemic by bringing international teams of researchers to conduct high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease surveys around rural areas of Yunnan, which is also the most demographically diverse province in all of China.  We have, to date, published three reports in the international literature about high blood pressure in Yunnan.  These are:

China Cal volunteer intern measures glycated hemoglobin in diabetes study.

Training Village Doctors

The education and training of village doctors is a core part of ChinaCal’s mission in Yunnan. While the cities of China swell and grow under the advances of rapid development, half of the country’s population,  hundreds of millions of people still live in rural villages.  Though the number of village doctors is sufficient, they remain poorly trained in the care of chronic diseases like hypertension and heart disease.  Village doctors undergo from 3 months to two years of training after high school.  They do a valiant job of serving their communities, but they are often under-trained to meet the needs of their patients with chronic conditions.   China Cal hosts training seminars every year for village doctors to expand their knowledge of diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure, which is  becoming an epidemic in rural China.   At these training seminars, village doctors are taught how to screen for and measure blood pressure, how to treat their patients with life style modification and medications and how to recognize and treat the complications of high blood pressure like heart attack and stroke.  These doctors are able to return to their villages better equipped to serve their communities.

Ximeng County Village Doctor Graduating Class and Faculty, October, 2011

A donation of just $1000 is enough to train 20 village doctors.