In fact it is the high altitudes and remoteness of the villages that put them in need of medical help.

Polish doctor Leszek Ratuszniak is joining a team of nine volunteers, including five doctors, who are going to visit some of the poverty-stricken areas in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region to offer free medical care.

The group’s main purposes are to disseminate mother-and-baby health information and train medical staff, and ultimately improve medical care in underdeveloped areas in Tibet.

Their specific destination is the Ngari area, the westernmost region of Tibet. The average altitude is more than 4,500 meters.

Altitude sickness is one of the primary difficulties of travel in Tibet.

The team’s journey to Ngari is part of the project dubbed “Life belongs to love: mother and infant safety 120 action,” launched by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) in late 2000.

Through a databank on women, project workers have kept a close watch on mothers in several provinces all over China, who have been identified as high-risk pregnancies in the past four years. This year the target is the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The maternal mortality rate in Tibet in 2001 was 327.3 per 100,000. The 2002 national maternity and infant mortality rate was 43.2 per 100,000, according to the Ministry of Health.

“It is because people have no basic life-support training,” said CFPA staff member Hua Ke. “They are delivering babies on dirt floors.” Hua is also the leader of the team going to Ngari.

In addition to a donation of medical equipment worth 300,000 yuan (US$36,276) from a Beijing interior decoration company, a medical task force for aid has been set up and opened to volunteers.

About 120 people signed up, 20 of whom were foreigners from countries as diverse as Poland, Afghanistan and India.

Five doctors and four assistants have been chosen, and subject to their medical checkups will set out on August 12 for their 20-day mission of mercy, in a place where the valley floors are higher than the highest mountains in most of the rest of the world.

A graduate from the postgraduate program of Beijing No. 3 Hospital in 1994, Leszek now works for the Polish Embassy in China. He serves as the doctor for the Polish national women’s football team when they play in Asia.

“I went to Lhasa (capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region) more than ten years ago,” he said. “That was only for fun and this time it is totally different, I am going there to help the people.”

Leszek, 35, was among the first foreigners to receive physician’s licenses in China last September. He always takes his annual vacation in August and usually travels around the world. This year the journey means much more than just sightseeing.

“Chinese friends say that I am a new age Dr. Bethune,” he said. “But I do not think I am. I am not qualified to have that honor.”

Dr. Norman Bethune was a Canadian surgeon who risked his life to support China during the Anti-Japanese War. He died in 1939 of blood poisoning contracted during an operation on a Chinese soldier.

Leszek said he wanted to gain a completely new experience in Tibet by helping others.

The four Chinese doctors going on the trip to Tibet have never been there before.

“Helping someone to improve their life is what I should do as a doctor,” said Yu Jiufei, a senior doctor in his late 30s. “I really treasure this opportunity.”

Zhang Shuhua, 25, a graduate from Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, is the youngest candidate among the five.

“The eye-opening part about going up there is to help me to understand there are people in the world who struggle so hard to live. I will have no problems when I am back home compared to the challenges those folks live with every day,” she said.

A nurse surnamed Wang, 45, once worked for a year on the Qinghai Plateau.

“It was a life-changing experience because those people live with so little and they are so appreciative of all that’s done for them,” she said. “That is why when I heard about this program, I didn’t feel that I wanted to do this -- I needed to do this.”

(China Daily August 4, 2004)