“As a medical doctor on a foreign aid mission, I hope to do more for the people here and help them acquire abilities they ‘cannot take away,’” said Zhang Tao, chief physician of the gastrointestinal surgery department at the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University, in a phone interview with China News Service on the 18th while carrying out an aid assignment at a hospital in Nepal.

On the eve of the eighth Chinese Doctors’ Day, the foreign medical team to which Zhang Tao belongs received holiday greetings from the Chinese Embassy in Nepal. In August 2024, as a member of the 16th Chinese medical team to assist Nepal, 43-year-old Zhang Tao traveled from Baoding to Kathmandu and began his overseas assistance work.

On August 13, Zhang Tao (center), chief physician of the gastrointestinal surgery department at the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University and a member of the 16th Chinese medical team to assist Nepal, was performing a teaching surgery. (Photo provided by the interviewee)

“It was the rainy season, and the mountain road to our station was especially rugged: a cliff on one side and a rushing river on the other. Coupled with the bumpy mountain roads, the 150-kilometer journey from Kathmandu to our station felt extraordinarily long.” A year later, Zhang Tao still clearly remembers his arrival.

However, the challenges were far greater than the journey. Frequent power outages, rudimentary equipment, shortages of medicines… difficulties came one after another. “At the most urgent moment, we completed an operation for intestinal obstruction using the flashlight on a mobile phone for illumination,” Zhang Tao recalled.

The hospital where Zhang Tao works in Nepal was built with Chinese assistance. Since Hebei sent its first medical team to Nepal in 1999, through joint efforts by China and Nepal, this hospital has become the largest local cancer hospital.

A larger challenge was changing local doctors’ traditional mindsets and helping them establish new diagnostic and treatment models. Zhang Tao said that the multidisciplinary team (MDT) care model was initially considered “time-consuming and labor-intensive” locally, but when they used this model to successfully extend the life of a patient with a malignant tumor, “the doubts in the eyes of our Nepalese colleagues melted away.” Helping the local hospital promote the establishment of this new diagnostic and treatment model is something Zhang Tao feels proud of.

“Today’s foreign medical assistance emphasizes both ‘teaching to fish and giving fish,’ maximizing support for the sustainable, endogenous development of local medical capacity. This is far more profound than mere clinical treatment,” Zhang Tao said. Through a “mentorship” teaching approach, this medical aid team has trained 12 local doctors who can independently perform laparoscopic surgery.

On October 5, 2020, after completing a free clinic in Lualaba Province, Yuan Shuai received a letter of appreciation from the local government for the foreign medical aid team.  Photo provided by interviewee.

The same changes have taken place across the African continent.

“When we first arrived at our post in Lubumbashi, the surroundings were desolate, accompanied by the sound of wind and generators. At that time, our primary task was to set up additional medical points here,” recalled Yuan Shuai, deputy chief physician of the Interventional Department at Hebei Provincial Chest Hospital, who formerly served as deputy leader of China’s 19th medical aid team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and leader of the 20th such team.

Yuan said Lubumbashi is the DRC’s second-largest city, but medical resources are severely insufficient, and patients often must travel to the capital, Kinshasa, for treatment. Thanks to the efforts of the foreign medical aid teams, the hospital where Yuan worked went from being idle to becoming operational. The teams also held 45 free clinics locally, benefiting more than 3,500 people.

In addition, Yuan has participated multiple times in the “China–Africa Paired Hospital Cooperation Mechanism” project. As a result, Tuba from the DRC is currently studying medical equipment maintenance at Hebei Provincial Chest Hospital. Tuba said, “Our hospital has many devices donated by China. I must study hard here so that after returning home I can share my experience with more colleagues.”

Data show that since 1963, China has dispatched more than 30,000 medical aid personnel to 77 countries and regions worldwide, cumulatively treating 300 million patients; it has trained over 100,000 local medical workers, filled thousands of technical gaps in recipient countries, and built “medical teams that cannot be taken away.”

Yuan said that though mountains and seas separate them, medical professionals share one heart. From Nepal’s rugged mountain roads to the vast plains of the DRC, Chinese foreign medical aid personnel have crossed mountains and seas to provide medical assistance to local patients, building bridges of friendship with their benevolent medical spirit. The local medical personnel they have trained are now actively serving on the medical front lines, becoming the most vivid testament to the approach of “teaching both fishing and how to fish.”