The China Medical Foundation on Sunday donated medical equipment to clinics in underdeveloped areas in northwest China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

The equipment, worth 3 million yuan (US$366,000), includes digital colored ultrasonic instruments, X-ray machines and sterile disposable syringes.

The foundation has so far donated medical equipment to more than 1,000 grassroots medical departments and 200 clinics in poor areas nationwide. The donations come mainly from large domestic and foreign companies, said Guo Xuezhi, an official with the foundation.

Tunzi central clinic in Zhenyuan County, Gansu Province, has become the most advanced and best equipped hospital in the county thanks to a donation of medical equipment worth 2 million yuan from the foundation last September, according to the head of the clinic Zhang Zhijing.

"Patients previously had to travel to hospitals 100 kilometers away, but that is not the case anymore now," he said.

According to Guo, the foundation also gives training courses to heads of clinics.

"Thanks to the training courses, I now know more about managing the clinic," said Gu Jianguang, head of Longhutang Clinic in Changzhou City of east China' Jiangsu Province.

At the donation ceremony, the foundation also called for more companies, medical colleges and research institutes at home and abroad to offer their aid and donations.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2005)