More orphans in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, are going to benefit from the "Tomorrow Plan", which aims to offer free medical treatment for disabled orphans in the country.

 

Under the second phase of the program launched Tuesday in Xinjiang, 902 disabled orphans will receive free operations in the coming six months.

 

By end of this year, all of the region's 1,548 disabled orphans will have received free medical treatment, according to the regional civil affairs bureau.

 

Xinjiang has conducted operations on 646 disabled orphans under the "Tomorrow Plan" since May 2004, and 95 percent of them have fully recovered, the bureau said.

 

The bureau said that the Ministry of Civil Affairs provides 70 percent of the funds to cover the cost of the operations, and the remaining 30 percent comes from local lottery income.

 

The "Tomorrow Plan", funded by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, is a national three-year project that began in 2004. The goal is to provide 30,000 disabled orphans free medical care.

 

There are approximately 66,000 orphans and abandoned babies living in welfare homes nationwide. About half of them are disabled.

 

So far only about 16,000 of them have received surgery, just over half the targeted number of the plan. With a year to go in the program there remains a lot of work to be done, a civil affairs official said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006)