Tibet Diary by Zhou Yun

Wednesday  June 1st

Today is the International Children's Day.  I am quite happy today though it is not my festival.

I visit Baiji, a twenty-seven year old pregnant women of Zhen Ba village of a small town in Nyingchi prefecture.

She has already had a two-year-old daughter and is going to give birth to another baby in a month.

Baiji says in the past, pregnant women didn't want to go to hospital to deliver babies, they would like to do that at home. Due to bad medical conditions, women get infected and some even died.

Baiji adds women from herdsman families in villages wouldn't like to go to hospital due to their old concepts, inconvenience to go to hospital and high expense of medical treatment.

Under such circumstances, Baiji says village doctors have tried their best to tell women the advantage of delivering babies at hospital. Most importantly, from two years ago, the government has given free medical treatment to herdsman pregnant women, whose medical treatment expenses are under 3800 RMB, or 475 US Dollars. As for the amount exceeding that limit, individuals and the government will share the expenses.

Baiji is among the first group of beneficiaries of the new policy. She says she herself paid almost no money when she gave birth to her daughter Degiyamzong  two years ago. And she decides that she will deliver her second baby in hospital too.

Baiji says her mother has given birth to ten children at home, while one of them died just after birth. And she wouldn't like to repeat the tragedy of her elder generation.

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