Health proposals vital to delegate

Jiang Jian brought two suitcases to Beijing to participate in the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress. The small one is for her clothing and other articles of daily use. The other one is full of printed materials and office supplies. Laying out articles from the second suitcase, she soon transformed her hotel room into an office.

Printer, paper, stapler, clips, adhesive tape ... you could see almost every article needed for office work in her room. "If the service center prints materials for me, I think it may not be able to serve other deputies," she laughed.

On the windowsill are more than 10 big brown envelopes with previous suggestions she has submitted to the NPC in the past 30 years - a total of 1,440 motions, including 78 related to food safety.

"I need all the materials for reference and to make sure I will not make repeated suggestions or submit repeated motions," said Jiang, who is the director of Qufu Hospital of the Chinese Red Cross Society in Shandong province.

This year, she plans to bring 52 suggestions and 16 motions to the fifth session of the 12th NPC. For that, she has done a lot of preparations.

"I make a lot of visits to schools, restaurants and villages to hear people's opinions, and I also make 100 to 200 phone calls every year. Sometimes, I hold meetings with them," she said.

She has visited all related government departments, including the health and family planning commission, food and drug administration and the bureaus of commerce and agriculture in Qufu.

"I get a lot of ideas from the people I visit. But many of them are bite-sized pieces of advice that are not well organized. Before I came to Beijing, I was very busy putting them in order. For three nights before I came, I didn't get to bed until after 3 am," she said.

She was even busier when she was on the way to Beijing on Thursday as she had to talk with other deputies to endorse the motions she planned to submit to the NPC. "Deputies were easy to find then as many came on the same train," she said.

NPC deputies must collect at least 30 signatures for each motion before submission.

She received replies for most of the suggestions that she brought to the NPC and many of them have been adopted. According to Guangming Daily, the motions Jiang submitted to the NPC about food safety were included into legislative plans.

"I felt very delighted after my motions were adopted as that means the interest of the public can be guaranteed," said Jiang.

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn