LifeSeeds - Transforming Health in Rural China

Kneeling down, both hands covering her chest, a 60 year old grandmother demonstrates to researchers of the LifeSeeds project just how painful the chest pains are, explaining that it usually happens after farming or doing heavy work. Liang Ke, a research fellow on The George Institute, China’s LifeSeeds project, asked her why she has not gone to a country hospital nearby.

She responded,” The medical treatment provided in the hospital are usually too expensive to afford”.

The Global killer…

It isn’t HIV. It’s not even tuberculosis, or malnutrition. The number one killer of people around the world doesn’t inspire Oscar winning performances by the world’s most famous faces. Silently, nearly unobserved, the expanding burden of cardiovascular disease has discreetly established itself as the leader of the burden of global disease in the 21st century.

In the next ten years, over 80 million people in China will die from a chronic disease. Cardiovascular disease will claim at least one third of those 80 million deaths.

These diseases are preventable and treatable.

As is often the case, those living in remote rural areas face even bigger challenges than their urban counterparts. They often lack regular access to a well-trained doctor, proper or consistent medication, or to the information on how best to prevent these diseases from developing in the first place.

Improving the delivery of healthcare…

LifeSeeds is the flagship project of The George Institute, China. It is aimed at addressing one of China’s pivotal health needs namely, reducing cardiovascular disease and closing treatment and health management gaps in the provision of primary health services in China’s rural villages.

“It has brought an enormous burden in terms of a socio-economic cost to the nation and Chinese population. The LifeSeeds program is trying to reduce the gap between the theoretical and practical issues,” says Mr. Ke, who is enthusiastic for the future of the rural Chinese who will participate in the LifeSeeds project. He argues the project will provide evidence-based solutions for treating cardiovascular diseases in rural China, where prevention and treatment programs are “mostly absent at the village level”.

Throughout the country, 120 villages from five of the Northern provinces of China-Hebei, Liaoning, Ningxia, Shanxi, and Shaanxi- will participate in the LifeSeeds program and will benefit from the various elements of the implementation of LifeSeeds over the first two years of the project.

Changing the lives of millions…

The potential of LifeSeeds to revolutionise how the rural people of China experience healthcare and are treated for cardiovascular diseases cannot be underestimated.

Strong local ownership and equal access to quality healthcare will reverberate through generations of rural Chinese. From a grandfather who otherwise would not have seen the first steps of his grandchild, to the mothers who will pass their families stories onto the generations to come, LifeSeeds will plant the seed of good health required for rural China to thrive into the future.