That people are healthy is an important symbol of a prosperous and strong nation. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Haiyan has made remarkable achievements in health care. Generations of local people have witnessed the upgrading of medical treatment and health care services in this city with over 1,000 years of history. Previous simple rural clinics now have became modern diagnosis and treatment buildings.

In 1929, the county-level hospital of Haiyan was established, ending the history that locals had to turn to “barefoot doctors” when they got ill. In 1956, the county-level hospital was renamed People’s Hospital of Haiyan. In 1978, the Haiyan Outpatient Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine was founded, and later it was upgraded to Haiyan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 1985, Health Center of Baibu, the first town-level health center of the county, was established. In 1997, Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital of Haiyan was founded. In 2012, People’s Hospital of Haiyan was moved to the current location, and in 2024, the new People’s Hospital of Haiyan is soon to put into operation. Over the previous 75 years, the county has been committed to improving people’s life and establishing satisfying medical treatment and health care service systems.

“In Haiyan we can make an appointment with expert doctors of the famous hospitals of other cities.” “It’s too convenient! We can see a doctor in the Internet hospital, and Chinese medicine can be mailed home.” “It’s not necessary to queue up to pay medical expenses any more; it’s increasingly convenient to see a doctor.” ... As witnesses to the remarkable progress in the health care, local people expressed their great satisfaction with convenient health care accessibility.

Now minor diseases can be cured in villages, and seeing a doctor is also intelligent in villages and communities. Beituan is the first village (community) of Haiyan to be awarded “Model of Health Village of Zhejiang”. In the health service spot of this village, there is a general clinic, a traditional Chinese medicine treatment room, etc. Moreover, the villagers can share county-level medical resources through remote diagnosis and treatment systems.

“Now our medical environment is good. We can see a doctor near homes for some minor diseases. As to some diseases, it’s not necessary to go to People’s Hospital of Haiyan. Just buy some medicines nearby; that’s OK. It is convenient,” said Zhou Yuliang, a villager. In recent years, rural medical conditions have undergone earth-shaking changes. Bai Zihua, a retired rural doctor feels the same.

Bai Zihua used to be a rural doctor of the village and now works as a volunteer of the health service spot whenever he is free. Doctors used to examine patients with three old medical instruments - a stethoscope, a blood pressure monitor and thermometer, but now medical facilities have been remarkably improved, so has doctors’ diagnosis and treatment ability. “We could only provide more than 100 kinds of drugs in the past, but now the varieties of drugs are more such as those for chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. Although it is small, the medicine cabinet holds over 200 - 300 kinds of drugs,” said he.

While exploring diagnosis and treatment scenarios of “future villages”, this village has upgraded its health service spot intelligently, purchased intelligent medical equipment like health detection machines and portable ECG monitors, and recorded and managed residents’ health information in an all-round and digital way, making medical services available anytime and anywhere to villagers. Now in Haiyan, there are 45 smart community-based health service spots like that of Beituan.

To build hospitals next to people’s homes is the first measure for the county to guide quality medical resources to flow to communities and villages. Since 2019, the county has established two medical treatment and health groups with People’s Hospital of Haiyan and Haiyan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine as centers. All medical centers and spots of each town (sub-district) and village (community) have been included into these two groups for integrated management.

Through integrating its medical resources, the county has supported urban medical resources like expert medical staff to flow to communities and villages to improve medical services and people’s satisfaction. Moreover the county has created favorable conditions for sharing urban and rural medical resources, equipment and talent and improved medical services to steadily achieve the goal that recovery and the treatment of minor diseases are made both at primary-level medical service spots, and serious diseases are treated in the hospitals at the county level or above.

Building high quality hospitals is indispensable to helping people see doctors near their homes. Not long ago, Mr. Zhang, a resident of Shendang, experienced a narrow escape. One day he suddenly felt serious chest pains, and a rest failed to ease the symptom, so he hurried to the nearest Health Center of Shendang. The doctor on duty did electrocardiogram examinations and immediately uploaded online the results to Chest Pain Center of People’s Hospital of Haiyan. Wang Yulong, vice president of the Hospital, made a quick reply that Mr. Zhang maybe suffered “acute inferior myocardial infarction” according to the preliminary diagnosis, and it was transmitted back to the Health Center of Shendang instantly.

Then he instructed the doctor of this health center to make the patient take acute myocardial infarction drugs orally, and then the patient was driven by ambulance to the Chest Pain Center of People’s Hospital of Haiyan. After receiving the first-aid warnings, the doctor of the Emergency Department of Hospital of Haiyan opened a green channel for the patient and started to prepare a treatment plan in advance. After further evaluations, Mr. Zhang was finally diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction, and was immediately sent to the catheter room for percutaneous coronary intervention treatment. The surgeon raced against time to go all out to save him. Finally a stent was implanted into his blood vessel successfully. Mr Zhang was saved.

This timely and effective treatment was attributed to the establishment of the medical groups of the county. In recent years, Haiyan has built nine medical resource sharing centers for medical examinations, radiology, electrocardiology, pathology, disinfection supplies and traditional Chinese medicine, accelerated efforts to get rid of the barriers preventing the diagnosis and treatment of serious diseases, drug supplies, two-way medical referrals, the optimization of public health services and the medical resources’ flowing to primary-level units. The county has constructed a new critical illness treatment model made up of a county-level critical treatment center, a first-aid center and primary-level medical institutions. Moreover, the county has cooperated with the famous hospitals of Zhejiang and beyond in new technologies and invited experts to work regularly at county-level hospitals to provide high-quality diagnosis and treatment to settle patients’ troubles.

Through medical system reforms, Haiyan has achieved great progress in medical treatment and health care services. With a nuclear medicine center, the new People’s Hospital of Haiyan will be put into use at the end of this October. In the future, more new drugs for radionuclide treatment and new technologies will be applied to clinical practices to benefit more patients.