Seeing is believing. Recent visits to the Xisha and Nansha Islands have impressed on me how an inconvenience of transportation has made island dwellers careful to avoid accidental injury and acute serious illness.

“We can’t afford to take such a long boat trip of nearly two days to return to Hainan Island for such serious conditions,” one local residents said.

Medical services are sometimes limited. Even to fight a potential cold, some residents of remote islets don’t miss a chance to buy more medicine if they drop by a hospital on the bigger islands, simply because their reserves might prove insufficient.

Some island clinics only offer some common medicines and offer preliminary treatment before transferring patients in serious condition.

Taking the southernmost Nansha Islands as an example, full-scale hospitals are out of reach at many of the Chinese islands and reefs, which on average are more than 1,000 kilometers away from Hainan Island.

Adding to the difficulties are the inconveniences of lengthy voyages sailing between Nansha and Hainan Island, such as lingering sea sickness.

Although the dark blue waves look spectacular and make great photos, they often force half of the healthy passengers to vomit and stay lying down to keep their nausea from getting worse.

So the new airports on the Yongshu, Zhubi and Meiji Reef of the Nansha Islands are a godsend.

Critically ill patients can board planes and fly to Hainan for timely treatment at full-scale hospitals.

The airport in Yongshu, which opened earlier this year, has already seen service in several emergency maritime rescue missions, according to Xinhua news agency.

Also, the Nansha Islands now house many other civilian facilities, including maritime weather monitoring system, scientific research centers and ecological bases.

With the sea’s stormy season around the corner, it is to be hoped that neighboring countries can join hands to face nature’s challenges, and I think China will extend its helping hand if needed.