Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    TWO Australian doctors will work in community clinics in Shenzhen’s Luohu District from Jan. 18 to 31, accepting patients while giving Chinese doctors on-the-spot training.

    It’s one step in the city’s drive to improve its community clinics to help more patients and ease the burden on large hospitals. In Luohu, where all hospitals are under the management of Luohu Hospital Group, money and resources have been allocated to community clinics to help them grow since the group was created in August. Meanwhile, the group has been inviting doctors from other countries. Luohu is interested in improving the skills of general practitioners, as opposed to specialists that work in large hospitals.

    Prof. Grant Blashki and Prof. Yang Hui will be the first two of overseas doctors to work at Luohu community clinics to test the idea of soliciting the help of overseas doctors, according to Qiu Chuanxu, deputy director of the community clinic management center of the group.

    “If residents are satisfied with seeing an overseas doctor in their community, and our staff members benefit from the training, we will invite more foreign doctors to Luohu,” said Qiu. “It can be a fast approach to promote our medical and service levels in communities.”

    Blashki, an associate professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health of University of Melbourne, has been a general practitioner for more than 20 years. He has conducted research into mental health, environmental health and global health.

    Yang is a senior research fellow at Monash University in Australia and worked for 17 years at Peking University as a researcher and teacher in health care before moving to Australia.

    Residents who want to see the two doctors can make appointments before Jan. 17, either by phone or by visiting the eight clinics where the doctors will visit.

    The clinics are in the Hujing, Liantang, Tianbei, Sunlitian, Wutongshan, Dongmen, Jinpeng, and Lianhua communities.

    The consultation fee for seeing the doctors will be the same as Chinese doctors at community clinics: 10 yuan (US$1.6), but each doctor can only receive 12 to 15 patients each day.

    Luohu Hospital Group said that up to three Chinese doctors will be learning from the Australian doctors.