The Wider Image: Home and hospital for dust-lung miners
Numbers used on X-ray images are placed at a desk in the radiology department of Yangjia Hospital in Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province, China October 19, 2015. Behind the vine-covered walls and broken windows of the radiology department, a single staff member and a single X-ray machine serve the few remaining pneumoconiosis patients at Yangjia Hospital. At Yangjia Hospital in a remote corner of China's eastern Zhejiang province, sufferers of dust lung spend much of their time hooked up to oxygen to treat lungs ravaged by work in a local mine, since shut down. Once equipped with high-tech machinery and 150 staff, the hospital has suffered from falling numbers and a lack of funding. With some of its windows broken and certain rooms abandoned, the hospital now treats just 30 patients. It's a close-knit community including family members, who prepare meals in makeshift kitchens, grow vegetables in the grounds and play cards to kill time. Dust lung, also known as pneumoconiosis, affects an estimated 6 million workers in China. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj PICTURE 21 OF 26 FOR WIDER IMAGE STORY "HOME AND HOSPITAL FOR DUST-LUNG MINERS". SEARCH "DUST LUNG" FOR ALL IMAGES
