FIVE YEARS ON

HEALTH

Following media reports on his life-changing story, more patients have come to Chengdu to seek help.

Another patient was a taxi driver in Wuhan, Hubei province, who was 37 years old in 2010 when he sought Liang’s help.

He was embarrassed when collecting his nine-year-old son from school and would not go to the gate, instead staying in a lane near the school to prevent the boy’s schoolmates from seeing him and then teasing his son.

Juveniles are ideal subjects for treatment, but many patients in the department are 20 to 30 because they live in remote, rural areas with little access to medical information.

There are 90 beds in the department that are always full.

“Some 600 patients are waiting for beds,” Liang said.

Only four surgeons, including Liang, are qualified to operate. Surgery can last up to seven hours. An individual surgeon may operate on 40 patients a month.

In addition to treating those who visit the department, surgeons visit remote areas where patients lack the means to search them out.

In June, Liang stayed at the Red Cross Hospital in Xining, Qinghai province, for two days, operating on six patients. One of them suffered from a curvature of 180 degrees.

A year earlier, Liang and a colleague visited Dafang, a poverty-stricken county in Guizhou province, for two days, consulting with more than 100 scoliosis patients whose primary desire is simple: to lead a decent life.

Liang said that’s what inspires him.