A father's cry
Adesperate Chinese father, who tried to kill himself and sell his organs to raise money to treat his dying son, has been filled with hope since he met a benevolent Londoner whose own son died of cancer five years ago.
Only a few weeks ago, Sun Jing was driven to despair by a disintegrating mainland health-care system that was prepared to sit back and watch his son die because he was poor. Liangliang, 14, had been diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago.
Doctors told the 41-year-old farmer from Shandong province his son's treatment could cost up to 600,000 yuan and he should 'just let it go'. Working stalls day and night - selling seafood, newspapers and clothing - Mr Sun and his wife, Chen Guzhi, could only earn about 1,000 yuan a month. To cover initial treatment they sold all their valuables and spent their savings. They borrowed money from friends and family, received small donations and took their 16-year-old daughter, Sun Guiping, out of school and sent her to work in a stationery shop, where she put in 12-hour days, seven days a week, for a wage of 400 yuan a month. But for all the family's efforts, the money they could scramble together was never going to be even nearly enough.
Up until 20 years ago, China provided free basic health care to all its citizens but, as the country embraced market reforms, most medical institutions were turned into profit-making businesses. Since then, 'health-care reform has been a failure and has turned medical services into the exclusive privilege of the rich', according to the scathing report Reform of China's Medical and Healthcare System, published jointly by the State Council's Development Research Centre and the World Health Organisation.
'Most of the medical needs of society cannot be met because of economic reasons. Poor people cannot even enjoy the most basic health care,' the study says, in a rare piece of public criticism in a country where the leaders are used to deferential treatment and congratulatory comments.
Mr Sun, like most of the mainland's 900 million rural poor, has no health insurance and extremely limited access to health-care facilities. Hospital after hospital he took his son to drew the same two conclusions: first, Liangliang was dying and required immediate treatment; and second, they would not admit him as his family had failed to show the ability to foot the medical bills.
After a desperate two-year struggle, Mr Sun was down to his last 800 yuan and his son's condition was deteriorating badly. He had run out of options and the only alternative he saw was to sell his own body parts.
Locked in a Beijing hotel room he wrote three letters - the first was a farewell note to his wife. The second was a letter of apology to the police for committing an act that might bring the locality into disrepute. He asked for their forgiveness, saying he could find no viable option.
And just before he swallowed 48 sleeping tablets, he wrote a third letter to the local hospital, begging for their assistance after he was gone: 'I want to save my son. He is suffering from blood cancer and needs a lot of money for treatment. I want to donate all my organs to people who need them, only if they can help.'
By fortunate coincidence, Liangliang arrived at the hotel minutes after his father overdosed. When his father did not answer his calls, hotel staff opened the door and found him unconscious. They rushed him to a local hospital where doctors managed to keep him alive.
The following day, local newspapers carried reports of the boy's plight and his father's desperate bid to help him.
One of the readers who was moved by the reports was Bernard Hicks, a management consultant originally from Ruislip in London, who was in Beijing on a business trip at the time.
Mr Hicks' own son, Sebastian, died five years ago with cancer of the neck and brain at just 19 months old, a personal tragedy that transformed Mr Hicks and his wife, Antonia, into activists. During the course of Sebastian's treatment they set up the Baby Cancer Foundation to raise money for cancer research, and to provide advice and counselling for families with children with cancer.
'When I read the report about Liangliang, I could not believe the father's personal sacrifice,' Mr Hicks, 50, says. 'Most of us are very selfish, we want our sons to live so we can see them another day. But this was the ultimate act of desperation.'
Some money has been raised in China from the local chapter of the Red Cross and members of the public since the initial stories were published but doctors estimate it will cost at least US$50,000 more to treat Liangliang. With that money they say he will have about a 60 per cent chance of surviving.
'In Liangliang's case there is sadly no guarantee of success,' Mr Hicks says. 'We will do whatever we can to save him but, even in the worst case, if he doesn't make it, we will continue to support children like him in China.'
With the Red Cross, Mr Hicks' foundation has also set up the Little Angel Fund to provide early diagnosis and treatment of cancer in children on the mainland.
There are more than four million people suffering from leukaemia in China, and the Red Cross says that while about 90 per cent of western children diagnosed with the disease survive, in China that figure is under 50 per cent, as so few can afford treatment or early diagnosis.
Liangliang is one of the lucky ones. With the money starting to come in, doctors in the Navy General Hospital in Beijing are preparing to perform a potentially life-saving stem cell transplant, using the teenager's sister as the cell donor.
A doctor bustles by and rates the chances of success as 'so-so, maybe 50-50', and with a sigh says Liangliang's chances of survival have been seriously reduced by the delay in getting him treatment.
As his father pats Liangliang's bald head, he says that his progress over the past week, following a course of chemotherapy, has been encouraging.
'He has really improved, and it's all thanks to the kind strangers who have come to help. Lots of Chinese people have given what they can - the Red Cross, Mr Hicks. It is really unbelievable, I don't know how to express my gratitude, how to ever repay them,' he says, with his hand on his forehead in an effort to hide the tears running down his face.
Liangliang, although weakened by the chemotherapy, is still chirpy and smiling and impeccably polite. He is reading a book entitled How to get accepted into Peking University, China's most prestigious seat of learning. Getting into that top university has been his lifelong dream, he says, and he has read the book so many times he can almost recite it from cover to cover.
On the previous day, a boy his own age who had read about him travelled several hours by bus to visit him in the hospital and donate all the money he had, about 100 yuan.
Just as with Mr Hicks and the other visitors, Liangliang took careful note of his contact details. 'I won't always be sick,' he says. 'Some day, I will attend the country's best university, and I will get a good job and earn lots of money. And then I will be able to repay everyone who showed me such kindness.'
Tears well up in the boy's eyes, too, when he talks about his father's desperation to save him.
'He is a very brave, wonderful man. I don't know how to ever thank him. But I know I must fight my sickness and get well. And I must be the best son I can be and make him very, very proud.'
His father says he sometimes struggles to believe he himself is still alive.
'I had made my decision. I had thought about it a lot and I was very clear about it,' he says. 'Now, my head is a bit confused. I'm here but I should be gone. But maybe it is like fate, maybe I am meant to be alive.'
