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Provide medical help on trains

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-04 07:43

As a train is a large, moving public facility, it should be equipped with emergency medical services for sick passengers, says an article in Dazhong Daily. The following is an excerpt:

On the first day of the lunar new year, Wang Chun, a chief of the train T24, successfully helped a woman deliver a child on the train on its way from Lhasa to Chengdu, winning acclaim from the passengers.

How lucky the newly born baby is! If the pregnant woman had a difficult delivery or no one on the train knew any skills of midwifery, the lives of the woman and baby would have been endangered.

A train is a moving public space. As passengers board on it, they become part of this moving community. We must change the outdated idea that a train is only a transportation tool. Instead, we should manage the train as we manage a real community. Thus, a train should also be equipped with some public facilities and services.

Now, it has already become easy to eat and drink on the train, but medial services on it have long been lagging behind. Obviously, selling foods and drinks can help train crews gain profits while medical services can't bring them profits since they are generally offered free for passengers.

A train takes thousands of peoples at a time and some passengers may inevitably fall seriously sick on the way. It's quite necessary that we beef up the emergency medical treatments on the train to protect the safety of passengers.

(China Daily 02/04/2009 page4)