Help for Millions

I am a member of Qinghai's exclusive Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, so it gives me a platform to submit policy proposals to the government. As a result of one of my proposals, millions of herdsmen and farmers are now spared from having to consider abandoning an ailing child due to financial hardships.Good morning!

Here’s good news to start off your week – beautiful little Xiao Shan is doing very well after her surgery!

Now here’s a different kind of good news for you.

As a member of an exclusive Qinghai committee of influential members of the public known as the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), I am able to submit policy proposals to the provincial government. In 2008 the government adopted one of my proposals and made numerous improvements to Qinghai’s new rural cooperative medical service policy. These changes are now benefiting millions of poor herdsmen and farmers, who were largely unaware of what government assistance was available to them. The improvements include:

•  A major public education campaign to inform rural heads of  households about  Qinghai’s new rural medical service policy with over 600,000 leaflets distributed;

•  Waiving of insurance premiums for residents of rural areas;

•  Waiving the requirement for rural patients to pay for treatment in advance.  Previously, patients needed to pay upfront then wait for reimbursement, something that the poor could seldom afford.

• Decreasing the percentage of medical expenses that rural patients have to pay !

It’s really quite wonderful how God enables us to help the poor and their children. In this case, the need to help poor herdsmen and propose changes to the existing medical services policy came to my attention because of a dying baby! In July 2007 I was at our orphanage in Qinghai's capital Xining when we received news of an abandoned baby on the verge of death. Just a year earlier, the mother gave birth to a baby with hydrocephalus. After several emergency treatments, the baby died, leaving the grief stricken couple with enormous debts. And now the mother had suffered a massive haemorrhage when giving birth to this little boy and although she survived, the baby had infected lungs and was struggling to breathe and feed. Now, with more money spent on controlling the mother's haemorrhaging, there was no money to fight for the life of this new baby. The young couple had no choice but to abandon their precious baby at the local hospital.

I will tell you more next week about how we were able to help that poor family. Please take action with us- click on the buttons below to Support, Subscribe, Email copies to friends and Share the blog on social networking sites !

Have a good week, and God bless you in whatever you have to do this week.