Twenty-four children with congenital heart disease from Qinghai province arrived at TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital in Tianjin this month to undergo free corrective surgeries.

Accompanied by their parents and by staff from the Qinghai Charity Federation, the children, with ages ranging from 1 to 15, include ethnic Tibetan, Hui and Han patients. Five hail from Huangnan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, a region paired with Tianjin for assistance.

In August, a medical screening team led by Liu Xiaocheng, Party secretary and president of TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital, traveled deep into Qinghai and worked at altitudes as high as 5,002 meters for more than 20 days. They screened 480 local children and identified the 24 who were eligible for surgery. Hospital clinicians will complete pre-operative examinations and tailor surgical plans for each child.

One notable patient is 1-year-old Tashi Tsho from Huangnan Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Her sister received successful free life-saving heart surgery at the same Tianjin hospital back in 2024, and now the younger girl follows in her footsteps.

For more than two decades, TICH has carried out 29 screening missions in Qinghai. It has conducted cardiac checks on some 14,600 local children and treated nearly 2,600 young heart-disease patients from the Tibetan Plateau.

Since 2004, in cooperation with civil-affairs authorities, charity groups and enterprises, the hospital has run about a dozen charity medical programs. It has offered life-saving treatment to 17,000 vulnerable children of 35 ethnic groups across 28 provincial-level regions nationwide. The hospital was honored as a National Advanced Group in Poverty Alleviation in 2021.