Prescribing the right medicine

Meir Oren inspects ward at the First Hospital affiliated to Shihezi University in Xinjiang.  [Photo provided to China Daily]

An expert on medical emergency is now helping a hospital in Northwest China. In the 1990s, he used to work as a senior official in Israel's Health Ministry.

His expertise includes hospital preparedness for exceptional scenarios such as bacterial warfare, bioterrorism or natural disasters. The military trained him for such emergencies in his youth.

"It's a common challenge that any hospital manager faces," Meir Oren, 68, says.

Oren started his China chapter in 2010, when a colleague who had worked here earlier introduced him to some hospitals. Then, the Hillel-Yaffe Medical Center, a major hospital in Hadera, Israel, with which he has been long associated, organized staff visits to hospitals in Sichuan province, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Shanxi province and Beijing.

After the tour, Oren, a former CEO of Hillel-Yaffe, saw an opportunity to help the First Hospital affiliated to Shihezi University in Xinjiang, because of the Israeli hospital's experience in trauma treatment. So far, three joint seminars on emergency preparedness, attended by medical professionals and senior healthcare officials have been held in Israel.

Such interactions have given doctors and the Shihezi hospital management a chance to observe Hillel-Yaffes' operations over weeks.

"When they return to China, they are able to implement many concepts and practices that they find suitable here," Oren says.

At the Shihezi hospital, international conferences related to emergency preparedness are held every two years, with assistance from Oren's center where he was CEO until last year.

The tie-up seems to be working.

In 2011, Zhang Hongwei, a general surgeon of the Shihezi hospital was able to establish a new emergency department there following his return from a training program at Hillel-Yaffe.

The Chinese doctors "quickly understood how important it is to cope successfully with terror events and other emergencies", Oren says.

In the past few years, his organization has trained more than 100 medical professionals from different partner hospitals in China, both in clinical fields and emergency situations, in Israel.

Training programs have also been carried out in China. And they have helped many hospitals in China, according to his colleague Moris Topaz, who initially asked Oren to come to China.

Oren himself has recommended many Israeli experts to China for academic exchanges, training and conferences over the years.

His relationship with the country is more than professional.