Their hearts in her hands: ‘a cause worth fighting for
Print Edition
GYNECOLOGIST and obstetrics doctor Zhuang Chanjuan has given tender, loving care to more mothers and their newborns than she can count in a 40-year career. Most of her patents in the last 10 years have been migrants too poor to afford treatment in the big, established hospitals.
Zhuang, 58, is now 18 months from retirement, but she hasn’t slowed down in her mission to help women through pregnancy. Her extraordinary dedication to patients has won her a “loving person” award from the Minhang District. But her real reward is the happiness she sees on the faces of patients at Wujing Hospital, where she now practices.
“The honors are all in the past,” she said. “Before I retire, I still have to do everything I can for pregnant women and new mothers.”
Her work with indigent populations started about a decade ago. At that time, many migrant women were forced to seek help from dubious midwives in backstreet shacks.
In 2004, the Shanghai government established 10 delivery wards earmarked for needy migrant women. One of them was set up at the Pujiang Community Health Service Center. Zhuang was transferred from the Shanghai No. 5 People’s Hospital to become director of the Pujiang maternity ward.
“In fact, it was the first such ward in Shanghai,” said Zhuang. “It was my job to set it up from scratch and get it operational. That was quite stressful undertaking despite my work in the field for around 30 years.”
She had to hire doctors, midwives and nurses, set up bed allocations and write delivery room regulations.
“The beginning was the most difficult,” said Zhuang. “Due to a lack of resources, we sometimes had to have two mothers and two babies sharing one bed, and we had to put extra beds in a crowded hallway.”
Despite everything, the care women received in the ward there far outweighed the alternative of backstreet deliveries by unprofessional midwives. The ward not only provided safe, high-quality care but also charged for little for services.
Zhuang’s medical team eventually expanded to more than 63 medical workers, making the ward one of the biggest maternity centers for migrants in Shanghai.
“I’m proud to say, we made a name for ourselves in Shanghai,” said Zhuang. “But the satisfaction came at a cost. Our team was always overloaded with work.”
At its peak, the ward had 41 births a day. Zhuang’s team often had to skip meals and work long into the night.
“No one complained,” she recalled. “No one quit despite mediocre pay and long hours. I think that was because we all believed this was a cause worth fighting for.”
Zhuang and her team are also credited with saving countless lives. She still remembers Chinese New Year’s Eve in 2006, when a dying woman was sent to the ward. The woman’s family had little money and she had gone to a backstreet clinic to give birth. But the delivery had resulted in hemorrhaging, and the woman was in critical condition when she was brought to the ward.
“I remember her husband sitting on the floor nearby in stunned silence, and her mother carrying the newborn, who was crying,” Zhuang said. “Upon seeing me, the mother dropped to her knees and begged me save her daughter.”
After an hour of emergency treatment, the patient was declared out of danger.
“It made me wonder how many lives have been lost in those backstreet clinics,” Zhuang said. “It made me feel that we needed to work even harder, expand our wards further and give more hope to more people.”
The ward eventually expanded from 12 to 102 beds, and the patient load rose from 1,000 a year to about 9,400.
Late last year, due to reforms in the medical care system, the Pujiang ward was closed and Zhuang and part of her team were transferred to Wujing Hospital to continue their work. Upon hearing that Zhuang was working there, patients flocked to the hospital.
“With the two-child policy now in place, there will be even higher pressure on gynecology and obstetrics,” she said. “That is especially true since some older women may decide to have a second child and that poses more risks.”
Zhuang admits that her devotion to her work has come at the expense of time with her own family.
She recalled the time her own daughter, then in high school, was ill and she wrote a sick note for her teacher. “Oh, you actually have a mother,” the teacher told her daughter. “I’m so sorry. I always assumed you were from a single-parent family.”
Zhuang said she does regret time not spent with her daughter.
“I never attended parents’ meetings when she was at school, and I was never home when teachers visited our home,” she said. “After retiring, I will spend more time with my family.”
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