Written by: Xinhua News Agency
Posted on: September 17, 2018 | 
| 中文
Lao Du checks patients who have burnt their eyes with chemicals
For “Lao Du,” an ophthalmologist from Russia, the brightness that eyes bring to the lives of people means hope and everything in his life.
In the consulting room of Daqing Eye Hospital in Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China, doctors found that their patients were anxiously worried about their eye problems, from common xerophthalmia to the high likeliness of eyeball removal.
Fortunately, patients are always pleased in the crowded physician’s room of a foreign doctor, and always have a smile on their faces.
“Take a seat please and look in front,” the Russian eye doctor instructed his patients in simple Chinese, with great patience. More often than not, he, with the assistance of his translator, would explain to every patient about their eye condition until they understood every detail.
Each day, with 30-40 medical appointments awaiting him, Lao Du couldn't find enough time even for a normal lunch and a brief break, and ever since 2007, he has managed to treat 10,000 eye patients.
Zhao Hongliang?a man from Daqing, who got an eye injury due to chemicals, was getting much better after 4 rounds of surgery and was deeply grateful to Du. “He used to pay regular visits to my ward and would ask me about my eyes, making me feel reassured.”
Lao Du is a nickname given affectionately by his colleagues. His real name is Dushen Nicola Wasiliyevich. He was an excellent eye expert at The People Friendship Hospital of Russia before retirement.
There is a long distance between Da Qing, the petroleum city in Northeast China, and Moscow, the capital of Russia. However, in Lao Du’s eye, neither distance nor strangeness is a problem, as there are medical practitioners working in China for the past 10 years just like him.
“In my opinion, there is no difference in patients all over the world,” he continued with a smile, “Using chopsticks is no big problem for me at all either.”
Yaoguang Yu, the director of Da Qing Eye Hospital, said, “He was on an academic exchange with our hospital before his retirement, and had built profound friendships with his Chinese counterparts, which in turn gave him the chance to work here in China after he retired in Russia.”
Lao Du believed that China could offer eye doctors like him a larger platform for medical research, as there is a larger patient population with various difficult miscellaneous diseases here, than in Moscow. Therefore, he carefully took notes of every eye case he has treated and exchanged the information with his colleagues. In doing so, some of the doctors of this hospital became “backbone” professionals of their departments.
Xingang Jia, deputy director of Daqing Eye Hospital, recalled, “We have made tremendous progress and learned a lot from Dr. Dushen Nicola Wasiliyevich’s detailed instructions and lectures. More impressively, he always has an equal attitude towards the treatment of every patient.”
Lao Du’s income from the hospital is not very high. However, for him, he believes that it is more important that he is able to share his knowledge with young doctors and help eye patients out of difficulties, with the help of newly-developed therapies. He values this more than anything else.
At times, he would give free treatment to the people of the villages and towns with his Chinese colleagues, and when he was mistaken as a local farmer walking on the muddy village road, he was pleased with the encounter.
Having been in China for over 10 years, he has witnessed various problems that the local people often talk about, such as how difficult it is for them to have medical services, how expensive the ophthalmic medical service is, and so on and so forth. Hence, he has been doing what he can to help the blind patients who are in need of corneas due to the insufficient donations of corneas in the city.
Lao Du has kept calling for more corneal donors after their death, and he hopes that more and more patients would be able to see the bright world because of the donations and the efforts of him and his colleagues.
Translated by Yang Jing
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