The 20th Chinese Medical Team handed over a fresh batch of hygiene and medical supplies to the Baie Ste Anne Praslin Hospital on Saturday, the latest move in a health partnership between Beijing and Victoria that has now run continuously for four decades.
The handover came during a short ceremony at the Praslin hospital, attended by the elected member of the National Assembly for Baie Ste Anne, Hon. Churchill Gill, the district administrator for Grand Anse Praslin, Syldova Volcère, the director general for the elderly and disabled division within the family department, Nelda Auguste, and the hospital’s nurse manager, Myra Ernesta.
Team leader Dr Du led a six-strong rotation that brought specialists in orthopaedics, surgery, neurology, radiology and acupuncture to the inner islands. Their brief on Praslin was to deliver practical care and professional advice to residents, not simply to pose for photographs.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dr Du framed the visit inside two round numbers: fifty years of diplomatic relations between China and Seychelles, and forty years since the first Chinese medical team arrived. “For four decades, Chinese and Seychellois healthcare professionals have worked hand in hand to improve the health and well-being of the Seychellois people,” he said. “We hope this outreach will not only meet the healthcare needs of local residents, but also further strengthen the friendship and cooperation between our two countries.”
The framing matters. China and Seychelles established formal relations on 30 June 1976, and 2026 has been marked across both governments as the “golden jubilee” of that tie, with President Patrick Herminie and visiting Chinese officials referring to it repeatedly this year. A May 18 readout from the China International Development Cooperation Agency, covering a meeting between CIDCA chairman Chen Xiaodong and Seychelles’ Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora, Barry Faure, captured the strategic weight both sides now attach to the partnership. Chen said 2026 marked fifty years of relations and that “friendship and mutual political trust between the two countries have continued to deepen.” Faure thanked Beijing for “long-standing selfless assistance” and reaffirmed Seychelles’ commitment to the one-China principle.
Health work has been the most visible plank of that cooperation. The medical team programme, run on a roughly two-year rotation, has been operating in Seychelles since the mid-1980s. Successive teams have run clinics in Mahé and, periodically, on Praslin and La Digue. The 19th team conducted a free clinic and donation at the same Baie Ste Anne Hospital in November 2024. The pattern has been consistent: consultations, donated consumables, equipment top-ups, and bedside teaching alongside Seychellois counterparts.
That continuity drew explicit praise on Saturday. Hon. Gill called the outreach a vivid sign of the enduring friendship between the two nations, “built on mutual respect, solidarity and a shared commitment to human dignity.” He argued it was more than a feel-good moment. Praslin residents, he said, would benefit immediately from orthopaedic, neurological and acupuncture services that are harder to access outside Victoria. Mrs Volcère, the district administrator, thanked the team on behalf of the island and echoed Gill’s argument that the partnership had become a working fixture, not a one-off.
The team also visited the Praslin Home for the Elderly to provide medical consultations, health assessments and acupuncture to older residents who find it difficult to travel to the hospital. Nurse manager Ernesta said the visit was the second time the Chinese medical team had run an outreach on Praslin and that the pattern had become an important part of the hospital’s wider health-promotion calendar. Outreach of this kind, she added, helps with early detection of illness, raises health awareness in the community, and feeds back into patient satisfaction.
The visit is the second time a Chinese medical team has run a Praslin outreach, and it fits a wider Chinese footprint on the islands. A 2024 visit by the PLA Navy hospital ship Peace Ark to Port Victoria added a second wave of free clinics and academic exchanges, and a separate cooperation agreement links the Seychelles Ministry of Health with the Guangdong Hospital Association. None of that displaces the quieter, routine work of the medical team, which remains the partnership’s most concrete daily expression on the ground.
Source: SN
Photo (for foreign-affairs context): Mervyn Marie / Seychelles News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
