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Man chained for 21 years sent for treatment
By Xiao Ma (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-05 06:11
A hospital in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is providing free treatment to a schizophrenic man who was chained for 21 years by his mother due to a lack of medical fees.
Doctors from the Inner Mongolia No 3 People's Hospital in the regional capital of Hohhot brought Wang Baozhu to a ward on December 29, the local Inner Mongolia Morning News reported.
Wang Baozhu, a mentally-ill man chained by his heartbroken mother for 21 years. [China Daily] |
Ding Zhuanyun, the mother of the 41-year-old, who had feared he might harm people if not chained, struggled to hold back her tears as he was taken away for the treatment.
"My greatest regret in my life is I was too poor to afford better treatment for him," said the 71-year-old woman from Zhuozi County under the city of Jining. She has two sons and three daughters.
After Wang's plight was highlighted, residents across the country offered donations.
Before the hospital stepped in to offer treatment, the fund amounted to more than 3,000 yuan (US$367). A single further donation of 10,000 yuan (US$1,233) is to come next April.
"I cannot give up hope for my son. He still has some thinking of a normal man," said Ding.
Ding said her son had only a piece of shabby cloth for clothing, and he lived in an empty house without a roof and with only three walls.
Attacked villagers
A pile of straw was used as fuel for a fire to warm him up, and a pot contained water for him.
"For 21 years, I brought him food to eat and water to drink every day. My hair turned white, and I don't know who will die first me or my dearest son," the paper quoted the mother as saying.
Wang's problems began in 1982 when he failed to enter a polytechnic school after graduating at the age of 18 from a local junior high school. In depression, he went to Hohhot as a migrant worker with his uncle but suffered a leg injury after falling from a construction framework.
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