As the world marked this year’s International Nurses Day, a new batch of doctors and nurses at the Chinese Level 2 Hospital in Zwedru seized the moment to firm up ties with the medical fraternity in Grand Gedeh County.

May 12 is the birthdate of Florence Nightingale, and is celebrated each year by the International Council of Nurses in honour of the founder of modern nursing.

A few days before the commemoration, the Chinese medics visited and interacted with their Liberian counterparts at the Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital in Zwedru. There, they donated an assortment of nursing gear to the hospital, including disposable rubber gloves, plaster of Paris bandages and pads and clothes for use by patients. A separate pack contained folders, printing paper, printer cartridges and other office supplies.

“We deeply appreciate the gesture and will make the best of the equipment,” Dr Elsie G. Karmbor, County Health Officer assured the Chinese delegation.

Coming just a little over a month after they deployed in Zwedru, it was the first concrete move by CHINMED-16 to connect with local health authorities.

“In China, good friends visit each other very often with gifts,” said CHINMED Commander Lt.-Col. Chang Cheng. “We also seized the opportunity offered by International Nurses Day to go to Tubman Hospital for an exchange of experiences in medicine and nursing.”

Much of that exchange in the administration wing of the hospital centered on the diagnosis and treatment of malaria cases.

To the astonishment of nurses at Martha Tubman, the Chinese medics said malaria was now very rare in their country and confined to the southern regions where one or two cases surface now and then.

The Chinese, too, were just as bewildered to learn that even without lab tests to confirm the presence of malaria parasites, their Liberian counterparts could from sheer experience tell the clinical signs and begin critical life-saving intervention.

The maiden outreach was capped with a guided tour of the Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital.

“Thanks to the visit, our nurses learnt a lot about working conditions at the hospital where two doctors and some 40 nurses receive on average 200 patients per day,” Lt.-Col. Cheng conceded. “This gave us an even deeper insight into the Nightingale spirit.”