China Focus: Hospitals under pressure amid new year baby boom

It's been an overwhelming week for Ding Zhigang. The anesthetist with Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital has been assisted dozens of deliveries.

"There were so many women booked in to give birth that I had to work around the clock," Ding said. "When I finished work yesterday, I was dead on my feet."

At one point during the Lunar New Year holiday, Ding worked more than 20-hours straight, helping to bring 15 children in to the world.

"This is going to be a very, very busy year for us," he said.

Hospitals in China are facing mounting pressure as China welcomes a baby boom in the year of the Monkey, one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals.

In Beijing alone, about 300,000 new babies will be born in 2016, 50,000 more than last year, according to figures released by Beijing's Health and Family Planning Commission. Nationwide, 22 million babies are expected to be born in 2016, almost the entire population of Beijing.

"The baby boom this year is partly a result of the belief that people born in the Year of Monkey are smart and confident," Zhai Zhenwu, president of the School of Sociology and Population Studies under Renmin University. "In addition, the new two-child policy has contributed to the growing number of pregnant women."

The baby boom, however, is casting a spell on medical institutions, with many hospitals across the country reporting a lack of beds and doctors and complaining of intensive work.

In the obstetrics wards of Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University in northeast China's Liaoning Province, three or more pregnant women have to share a double room. Extra beds have been installed down the hallway.

"The upgrade of hospital facilities has failed to keep up with rising maternity needs," said Du Juan, an official with the hospital. "Besides, we don't have enough doctors, so each one of us is working almost nonstop."

Many doctors from across the country told Xinhua they, too, were feeling the pressure.

MOUNTING PRESSURE

In China, more couples choose to have children in auspicious years, such as the dragon, horse and monkey, but this year, the situation is particularly pronounced.

At the Third Central Hospital of north China's Tianjin Municipality, there have been 51,000 labors registered for the year, a year-on-year increase of 61.9 percent.

During the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, 98 babies were born in the hospital, 10 each day on average, according to Song Shurong, an obstetrician with the hospital.

"There were 14 births on the third day of the Lunar New Year," Song said. "We were so busy that we could barely break for a drink or to use the toilet."

Song said that none of the hospital's 46 beds were vacant, so they had to add extra ones down the hallway.

"We had 6,000 new babies in 2014, the year of the Horse," Song said. "But this year is likely to go way beyond that."

Similar situations can be found in provincial maternal hospitals in the northwestern province of Gansu. According to hospital official Yang Xiumin, about 16,000 new babies will be born this year, up 15 percent from 2014.

Medical institutions, too, are feeling the pinch.

In Beijing, the capital's first-class midwifery institutions were all over booked for 2015, according to Beijing's health authorities. The 2016baby boom is likely to exert even more pressure this year.

Meanwhile, many of this year's pregnant women are older mothers, thanks in part to China's lift of the one-child policy at the end of last year, bringing extra challenges for medical staff.

China, however, does not have enough maternal staff. According to figures released by the World Health Organization, there are only three midwives for 1,000 pregnant women in China.

The southwest municipality of Chongqing needs almost 10,000 midwives, according to Li Hongyu, head nurse at Chongqing's Southwest Hospital.

In the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in the northeastern city of Changchun, officials have increased the weekly working hours of each medical staff by 50 percent to cope with the spike in pregnancies.

FINDING A WAY OUT

Amid mounting pressure, authorities are trying to find a way out.

In Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, local hospitals have increased beds and hired more staff.

Harmonicare Medical Group, China's largest private obstetric hospital, has upgraded its institutions in Beijing and central China's Wuhan City by adding more beds and recruiting more staff. The group owns 11 hospitals for women and children across China.

"Besides the efforts, the government should step up medical investment to ease the pressure," said Wei Hongwei, an official with Guangxi Maternal and Child Health Hospital. Endi