In 1992, shortly after the resuming religious activities in China, Pastor Ma Xin, who was also a doctor of Chinese traditional medicine, founded a gospel clinic in Zhou, Henan.
Nine years later, it was enlarged into a gospel hospital and Rev. Ma became the chief head of the hospital.
Approved by the local authority, it serves as a non-profit comprehensive Christian hospital in connection to the church. It covers 3680 square meters with a net area of 2986 square meters.
The hospital employs 41 people to tackle departments such as cardiovascular medicine, respiratory medicine, gastroenterology, pain, surgery, anorectal section and gynecology. It has 60 in-patient beds with an average of 150-200 patients per day for the out-clinic.
The president, Mr. Cui, tells CCD that he came here in 2003 and previously, he worked as an physician in the Second People's Hospital of Zhoukou.
He also remarks that the medical staff consists of 60% believers and the rest unbelievers who stay here for charity service.
A large percentage of the patients are the local farm laborers and Christians who can only pay the low cost fees. They can apply for reimbursement if they are holders of the rural cooperative health care insurance.
"The hospital gains no profit, only earning enough to pay the medical staff." Cui says, "We intend to serve people and present them with love."
He states that it also carries out free rural clinics once a week when it is not high season and visits patients with AIDS occasionally. They also distribute medicines for free.
"We often go to distant places to offer free clinics and the road is difficult to walk in. As a result, the patients and seniors there are unable to move freely and nobody takes care of them since the young migrate to cities to look for jobs. It's inconvenient for them to go to hospitals so we go there to give them free clinics with free medicine distribution." Says Cui.
Rice and oil may be sent to the economically disadvantaged families during the clinics. Some people have converted to Christianity, because of their good deeds.
Aside from these free clinics, students who study in the Zhoukou Bible Training School and other training programs receive medical checkup and treatment free of charge. For example, Cui says a believer diagnosed with uterine fibroids has recovered from the disease after the free treatment in the hospital while she spent so much money on the cure that caused her child not to go to school in the past.
Each year, about ten patients receive the free treatment with some coming from Huaiyang and Dancheng (counties subordinate to Zhoukou).
Zhoukou is a farm city where there is little land compared to the large population it has. A lot of young people move to cities to work; therefore, a large number of left-behind children appear. The hospital also offers check-up for these children occasionally.
"We teach the left-behind children health knowledge and the ailment prevention, sending them gifts since most of the elderly know nothing about science. The next activity is to go to Huaiyang in September." Cui adds.
Aside from the free clinics and caring for the children, the gospel hospital also serves the patients with HIV/AIDS, who tend to be excluded from the world and living in isolated villages. The majority were infected with the disease because of blood selling. Cui says that there are "AIDS villages" in the counties like Xihua and Dancheng and people don't want to contact them with patients who feel so ashamed because they could not integrate into society.
"It takes half a month to a whole month for them to recover from a cold, because they have low immunity. We will have them checked and send some medicine, pots, pans, rice and oil." Cui says that they live on the relief goods from the government who also distribute free medicine to them.
Aside from this, the social service department of the Zhoukou CCC&TSPM helps these patients to support themselves. For example, the ministry will give them lambs freely and teach them how to raise these animals, as well as how to make methane by corn stalks to save the gas fee on the condition that the producing equipment is funded by the church.
