The site of Bethune Model Hospital is located in Yankou Village, Wutai County, Shanxi Province.
Bethune, member of Canadian Communist Party, was a famous thoracic surgeon and a great International Communistic fighter. With the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, a medical team made up of Canadians and Americans came to China under the leadership of Bethune, helping to cure the wounded in the war. In June 1938, Bethune went to a rear hospital in the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahaer-Hebei) Military Region. To improve the medical conditions there and help to nurture medical cadres, he participated the design and construction of a surgical hospital with facilities such as surgery, antisepsis room, infirmary, washing room and ward and the hospital was named Bethune Model Hospital by the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region command. It functioned as a good example to raise medical conditions of the military region and to cure the wounded.
The Bethune Model Hospital was burnt to ashes by the Japanese intruders in 1940 and rebuilt in 1974 following its original appearance. And an exhibition room for Bethune's stuff was constructed that year in memory of him. In the yard of the site, an over 7-meter-tall white-marbled tower stands there with Mao Zedong's works titled To Commemorate Bethune on its facade and epigraphs of Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen and Bo Yimo on the other three sides.
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