Giving peace a chance

Having spent one year in Sudan, Yu Min, the 44-year old Chinese military officer, is now back again in classroom, staying with his students. With his unforgettable experiences as the chief medical officer of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan, Yu also had more practical field knowledge to share with his students and colleagues.

It is a business about life and death, it is a business that requires not only capability, but also responsiblity, says Yu, recalling his mission in the African country.

"In Sudan, I have to keep my mobile on because emergency calls could come at any time and they need an answer from me and no time can be wasted," Yu told China Daily.

Yu still remembers how a Chinese medical team saved the life of an Indian soldier in November. The man suffered head injuries and required immediate surgery.

It would have been a tough surgery even in a well-equipped city hospital, says Yu, who joined the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan last July.

He says that it was a miracle that the surgery was successful in a field hospital, where necessary equipments and medication are sometimes lacking.

For pulling the soldier back from the brink of death, the Force Commander of UN peacekeeping troops awarded the Chinese doctor with a Commendation. However, there was also the time when the colonel couldn't do anything to help from losing a patient.

One night Yu was woken by an emergency call and was told that an Egyptian officer was shot in Darfur in western Sudan and needed urgent treatment. Yu spent the rest of the night trying to evacuate him to a UNMIS (United Nations Mission in Sudan) hospital, but it proved tremendously difficult since the state of the patient was critical.

"The United Nations' only clinic there couldn't do the operation. I tried to ask help from other organizations, but it was too late," Yu says.

To avoid a similar tragedy from occurring in the future, Yu is expected to visit Darfur in the coming weeks to establish UN hospitals in the region. It is reported that the United Nations will set up two hospitals, with one manned by Pakistani doctors and the other by Egyptian ones.

In addition to dealing with emergencies, Yu is also in charge of the day-to-day operation of his UN medical team.

The members of his team come from many different countries and each seems to speak his or her own dialect of English. Coordination is a major challenge, he says.

"When I first took the position last July, I had to cock up my ears so that I wouldn't miss or misunderstand them (UN team)," Yu says.

"But now there is no barrier between us."

Having been teaching medicine for more than 20 years in the Forth Military Medical University in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Yu speaks good English and has so far trained six doctors and more than 30 postgraduates.

As the Senior National Representative of China in UNMIS, with the highest military rank among 435 Chinese peacekeeping troops in Sudan, including 275 military engineers, 100 transportation staff and 60 doctors, the colonel was also consulted by the United Nations on anything, which Chinese peacekeepers were involved.

In places such as South Sudan where small-scale conflicts are still going on and lots of mines are left after a two-decade civil war, danger arises at any time. "Our soldiers may be injured by a mine blast, a hostile attack or even road traffic accidents. And our job is to try our best to save their lives and their limbs. Beside these, the environmental health and hygiene is important for the health and well-being of the peacekeepers," says Yu, who traveled frequently between Khartoum and sectors in South Sudan.

The operational environment in the mission is a huge challenge, therefore medical personnel need not only excellent medical skills, but also a lot of heart and soul, he says.

(China Daily 08/03/2007 page20)