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What if I get ill in Western Sichuan?

The distances here are long, so the useful thing to know is that you are never far from a clinic. Every township has one, and medicine is easier to find in these small places than it used to be.

By TK Chang Sichuan, Qinghai & Yunnan
Quick answer

Every township has a health centre of its own — the , a local clinic that handles ordinary illness and first response. Pharmacies are common in the townships now as well, so basic medicine is not hard to find. For anything serious, the ambulance number is 120. And on this plateau the emergency most likely to happen to a visitor is altitude, which behaves differently — see the altitude page.

There is a clinic in every township

This is the reassuring part, and it is worth stating plainly because the map makes the region look emptier than it is. Every township — the unit of local administration out here, and the thing you drive towards all day — has its own health centre. It is not a hospital in the big-city sense; it is a local clinic, staffed and equipped for ordinary illness and for stabilising someone who needs to get somewhere bigger.

The practical consequence is that you are never very far from someone qualified to look at you. The gaps are between townships, and those gaps are two to four hours — see how long the drives are.

Pharmacies are easier to find than they used to be

Pharmacies are now common in the townships, and in county towns you will find several. Basic things — painkillers, cold medicine, plasters, rehydration — are straightforward to buy. If you take a prescription medicine regularly, bring enough of it with you: a small-town pharmacy is not the place to try to match a foreign prescription.

If it is an emergency

The ambulance number in China is 120 — the same number the altitude page tells you to call. If you are not able to speak Chinese, the most useful thing you can have is someone with you who can; on any trip arranged through here that is the arrangement. On the road, the fastest route to real medical care is almost always to get to the nearest town rather than to wait where you are.

The one that is most likely

Altitude is the illness that visitors here actually meet, and it is not handled like other things — oxygen first, and coming down if that doesn't work. It has its own page, and it is the one worth reading before you travel rather than during.

Questions I get on this one

Is there a hospital near the plateau?
There is a health centre in every township, and proper hospitals in the county towns and cities. For anything serious you would be moving towards one of those, and the roads to them are the ones you have been driving all day.
What is the emergency number?
120 for an ambulance. It is the number to use for a medical emergency, and it is on the altitude page too, because that is where people most often need it.
Can I buy medicine easily?
In the townships, generally yes — pharmacies are common now. What is not easy is matching a foreign prescription, so bring your own medication with you rather than planning to replace it out here.
Will anyone speak English at a clinic?
Assume not, outside Chengdu — English is rare in the small places, as the language page explains. This is one of the situations where having someone with you who speaks Mandarin matters most.

What is on this page is local knowledge about what exists and where, not medical advice. For anything about your own health, ask your doctor before you travel. Related: altitude · travel insurance · all essentials

Where this comes up

Trips where this actually matters. Each one is a route I have driven.

Route
Chengdu to Yushu: fourteen days across Kham — Danba, Tagong, Litang, Derge & the road into Qinghai
Route
Yushu to Chengdu in winter: seven days down the Kham corridor — TK's Travel Book
Route
Xining to Chengdu the long way: three days over Qinghai Lake, Anemaqen and the road home

See all five routes