TAIYUAN: Zhang Suoyin, an impoverished 61-year-old farmer with terminal liver cancer in north China’s Shanxi Province, was surprised one August morning when Eric Miller appeared on his doorstep carrying a cake.
Miller, 52, is from Pennsylvania in the United States and works as a member of the hospice care program at Yangquan You’ai Hospital, a private hospital in Shanxi’s Yangquan City.
Over the past seven years, Miller and his team members have provided care and comfort to more than 200 critically or terminally ill patients like Zhang.
On that particular morning, Miller wore a brown T-shirt that read “Start the conversation.” The slogan indicated one of his team’s missions — helping the patients face death with dignity.
“Their frequent visits have inspired me a lot. I’ve been looking forward to someone coming to talk to me,” said Zhang.
“Hospice care provides comfort care for patients at the end of their lives, after treatment is really not very useful anymore. The point is to find some value in their lives on the days that they have left, and also to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible,” Miller said.
Palliative care, which originated in the West, focuses on all-round care for patients and their families, including pain relief, psychological counseling and social support.
The service was introduced to China more than 30 years ago, mostly in big cities. With an expanding senior population, the country had 354 medical institutes that offered hospice care by the end of 2019, according to an official annual healthcare progress report. But the concept remains unfamiliar in rural areas, as few cultures relish talking about death.
Miller first came to China in 1988 as an exchange student. His affinity with hospice care is largely due to his wife Li Ruoxia, a native to Shanxi who engages in charity work and community service.
They met in China in 2001, then married in the United States. Miller has since completed his doctorate in anthropology, participated in many studies focusing on subjects such as elderly care and rural China, and gained experience in a Virginia-based institution specializing in end-of-life care between 2010 and 2014.
By chance, the couple met Li Youquan, founder of Yangquan You’ai Hospital, when the latter sought effective psychological intervention for cancer patients.
“Eric knows enough about China, while his wife has nursing know-how. Their knowledge and experiences are exactly what our hospital needs,” Li Youquan said.
“With China’s remarkable development and rising incomes, hospice care is bound to embrace very good development,” said Miller. “We feel like if we can do hospice in Yangquan, there is a possibility to really bring hospice to other cities across China.”–Agencies
