HAND has registered 500 desperately poor families among the Chinese Minority Nu People for free treatment at a clinic based in Zhi Zi Luo. Our local doctor He Ming Yi along with the clinic organiser, Yue Han, also tour the surrounding nine villages, looking for patients who are too sick to make it to the clinic themselves. Common diagnoses included those that one associates with a poor rural area, 3,000 metres high, for instance; dehydration sickness, treatment of thrush and other fungal related diseases, bacterial infections found in eyes or as a result of food poisoning. Prior to HAND''s intervention these ailments, although ostensibly minor, escalated into serious conditions due to the fact that our clinic is located in an area so remote and so poor that, to most, seeing a physician of any note would cost more than a month''s salary, while seeing a specialist, would involve a 300 mile round trip.

For those in need of such treatment, HAND acts as a referral unit. At present, two or three patients each year undergo major operations, usually orthopedic. We hope that this number will rise as we receive more donations.

HAND is unique as all of our volunteers, including for example foreign doctors, teachers and business people pay for their own expenses. The only people who receive any money are our local doctor and nurse.