The story appears on

Page A4

January 20, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Metro » Health and Science

Neighborhood clinics to have pediatrics on staff

SHANGHAI’S 300-odd neighborhood health centers will soon start offering pediatric service this year in an effort to ease the pressure on big hospitals.

The city is making efforts to have 300 to 500 more pediatricians by 2020 to solve the chronic shortage of doctors for children, local health officials said yesterday during a press conference.

Since December, local hospitals have been dealing with a huge jump in the number of little patients, with some reports claiming that parents and children were waiting for up to five hours before they received treatment.

With the easing of one-child policy from this year, the demand for pediatricians is only like to grow more, said the health officials. The city government said that it would invest to expand the pediatrics departments in the hospitals, put up more beds, groom more doctors and encourage people to visit local health centers offering pediatric service.

“About 80 percent of children who visit leading pediatric hospitals suffer from cold, fever and coughing, and 90 percent of them have viral infection, which is common during season change,” said Dr Sun Kun, president of Xinhua Hospital.

“These patients don’t have to go all the way to crowded big hospitals and can easily be treated in neighborhood clinics near their homes.”

Officials from Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission said it will soon require all district-level hospitals to offer pediatric outpatient service and promote pediatric training for doctors at neighborhood health centers for common disease diagnosis and treatment.

“So far, some 20 neighborhood health centers have offered pediatric service, which will be promoted this year,” said Wu Jinglei, from Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission, yesterday.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend