to alleviate the pressure on the city's only children's hospital amid a baby boom sparked by the second child policy, shenzhen's health commission said friday that it is taking measures including building more children's hospitals and encouraging private investment in the sector.
shenzhen children's hospital received 2.02 million patients last year, including about 1.7 million outpatients, up 12 percent from a year ago, and more than 300,000 emergency patients, up 0.62 percent from a year ago. it performed 22,001 surgeries last year, up 8.96 percent from a year ago.
the hospital was designed to accept 220,000 patients annually and the current number of patient visits is more than nine times the designed capacity.
as a growing number of shenzhen residents choose to have a second child, zhong shan, president of the hospital, expects the pressure to grow in the coming three years. the hospital is planning to further expand its capacity by erecting another building but it will take time to complete.
the lack of pediatricians and the difficulty of recruiting new pediatricians, according to zhong, are the major reasons behind the difficulties residents face in getting access to the medical resources for children. zhong said that they had visited 18 provinces last year to recruit doctors, but in the end only found 18 qualified applicants willing to come to the city to work.
to solve the problem, the health commission said it would work with universities at home and abroad to train pediatricians especially for shenzhen.
the city is building its second public children's hospital in longhua, which will have 1,500 beds upon completion, the health commission said. a private children's hospital with 500 beds in bao'an district and another one having the same capacity in the longcheng area of longgang are also being planned.
