With each health center to cost 150,000 yuan (US$18,000), public hospitals will send medical teams to provide basic medical treatment for the community.

Although understanding residents' plight, the municipal development and reform bureau had difficulty deciding locations for the new health centers.

"People welcome centers but nobody is willing to have a center downstairs because infectious diseases and medical pollution were involved, which is the main reason for the delay," said a bureau spokesman.

The bureau has established a special fund for the construction of community health centers. In cooperation with the land resources and real estate management bureau and the health bureau, 281 community health centers were completed at a cost of 33 million yuan (US$4 million) over the past seven years.

(Shenzhen Daily July 29, 2004)