Children’s Medical Foundation

Providing accessible health care to children

By establishing collaborative partnerships and institutional linkages, CMF provides capacity building initiatives to bring accessible health care to rural communities and to strengthen primary care and community health in Asia.

The Children’s Medical Foundation (CMF) was established in 1995 (as Project HOPE Hong Kong) as a part of the US charitable organization Project HOPE, a non-profit international health education foundation.

CMF’s first project was to help establish the Shanghai Children’s Medical Centre – the first state-of-the-art children’s hospital in China. Since then, CMF has continued to develop and implement programs in China to improve health care available to children. These programs include:

• The establishment of 20 Neonatal Intensive Care Units to treat severely ill newborn babies in rural, underserved areas in China.
• The Indigent Children’s Fund which has funded the life saving surgeries of 173 orphaned or poor children.
• The Western Training Program (until 2008) which provides one-year intensive pediatric training for doctors and nurses in socio-economically disadvantaged provinces in China.
• The HIV Peer Education Program (until 2007) which educated all children attending middle and high school level education in Shanghai, as well as students in San Ming, Fujian Province and Bei Hai, Guangxi Province.
• The establishment of the Minimally Invasive Surgery Centre at the Shanghai Children’s Medical Centre.

In 2006, CMF became an independent, self-governing, self-sustaining charitable social service organization, allowing our focus and resources to remain in Asia. Our Board of Directors is a 100% giving board – their contributions cover 100% of CMF’s administration costs.

CMF’s current programmatic focus is on improving the health care available to newborn babies in China where the infant mortality rate in rural areas is amongst the highest in Asia and where we have established strong historical institutional relationships. Our programs are centered around capacity building through training, collaborative program development, and improving infrastructure; leveraging partnerships and networks with our health care partners at the local and national level; and providing emergency funding for families who cannot afford life-saving treatment for their babies. Monitoring and evaluation are key elements of our program design, as well as accountability and transparency in our use of donor funds.

Children’s Medical Foundation

Years involved: 2014

URL: www.cmf.org.hk

CMF’s first program was to help establish the Shanghai Children’s Medical Centre – the first state-of-the-art children’s hospital in China. Since then, CMF has continued to develop and implement programs in China to improve healthcare available to children.  Our current focus is on improving healthcare for newborn babies in rural China.

Why focus on improving healthcare for newborn babies in rural China?

A disproportionately high percentage of newborn babies are dying in China and around the world.

The UN’s Millennium Development Goal #4 is Reduce Child Mortality – over 40% of deaths of children under 5 years old occur within the first 28 days of life.  Around the world, this amounts to 4 million newborn babies dying every year before they reach the first month of their life, mainly from preventable causes.  In China, in 2007, a staggering 229,200 newborn babies died within the first 28 days of their lives.¹

Many of these deaths in China can be prevented through improving training and infrastructure of newborn healthcare in rural, underserved areas. 

The main causes of neonatal mortality (death in the first four weeks of life) are asphyxia (due to lack of oxygen before delivery), low birth weight and infection.  Many of these deaths can easily be prevented.¹

Children born in rural China are three to six times more likely to die before they turn 5 than those in the cities… the disparity between child health in the booming cities compared with the poor countryside remain stark.³

Poor families are also faced with sometimes insurmountable costs to access healthcare, sometimes having to choose the death of their child simply because they cannot afford the hospital care.

In 2010, rural residents had an annual average per capita disposable income of 5,900 yuan ($898). That’s less than a third of the average per capita disposable income of urban residents, which stood at 19,100 yuan ($2,900).⁴

For every newborn who dies from asphyxia, which occurs when the newborn receives an inadequate supply of oxygen immediately before, during, or just after delivery, another suffers lifelong impairments such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy, or developmental delay.   The costs associated with such disabilities strain health systems, while caring for disabled or sick children burdens families; furthermore, the loss of children’s potential future earnings exacerbates the cycle of deprivation for families and societies.²