Hospitals struggling to cope with baby boom
Print Edition
IT’S been an overwhelming week for Ding Zhigang. The anesthetist at the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital has been assisting in 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, around 300,000 new babies will be born in 2016, 50,000 more than last year, according to the capital’s health and family planning commission. Nationwide, 22 million babies are expected to be born this year.
“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 Renmin University’s School of Sociology and Population Studies. “In addition, the new two-child policy has contributed to the growing number of pregnant women.”
The baby boom, however, is a problem for medical institutions, with many hospitals across the country reporting a shortage 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 placed in the hallway.
“The upgrade of hospital facilities has failed to keep up with rising maternity needs,” said Du Juan, a hospital official. “Besides, we don’t have enough doctors, so each one of us is working almost nonstop.”
At the Third Central Hospital in north China’s Tianjin, 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, said obstetrician Song Shurong.
“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.
“We had 6,000 new babies in 2014, the year of the Horse,” Song added. “But this year is likely to go way beyond that.”
It is a similar story at provincial maternity 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.
Meanwhile, many of this year’s pregnant women are older mothers, thanks in part to the end of the one-child policy, bringing extra challenges for medical staff.
China lacks maternity staff. According to World Health Organization figures, there are only three midwives for 1,000 pregnant women in China.
Wei Hongwei, an official at the Guangxi Maternal and Child Health Hospital in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said: “The government should step up medical investment to ease the pressure.”
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