Lack of pediatricians worsens medical services
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In the waiting room of Beijing Children's Hospital (BCH) full of crying children, farmer Chang Xianliang nestled against a post with his eight-year-old son in his arms, as hundreds of other parents waited in line for registration.
Chang, who came from Handan in Hebei Province, told Xinhua that he came here at 6 a.m. but was told the quota for the day had been filled, after queuing for two hours to see a neurologist. "The specialists are too few," said Chang.
He said his son always felt not well in his body and head but local doctors failed to diagnose the illness.
In the hospital's eatery, a man surnamed Wu from Baoding, Hebei Province, was eating instant noodles with his 11-year-old son after seeing the doctor.
Wu recalled that he had queued from night till the next morning the first time he took his son, who suffered from congenital heart disease, here to see a cardiologist last month.
"If you came late, it's impossible to get registered as mountains of parents were waiting ahead of you," Wu said, the waiting lines were sometimes extended to the curbside hundreds of meters away."
There was no pediatric hospital in his hometown, Wu sighed.
There were more people like Wu and Chang Xianliang who complained about the lack of medical staff.
While parents were complaining that "the specialists are too few," huge number of pediatric patients also made it overwhelming for the doctors. "That is too much for us," said an anonymous pediatrician in BCH.
According to statistics from the website of the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau on Jan. 31, on average one doctor in BCH received more than 53 pediatric patients, and in the other specialized pediatric hospital in Beijing, the Capital Institute of Pediatrics (CIP), averagely one doctor received 46 Children.
Zhang Jian, the BCH deputy president, said that the hospital was designed to receive 4,000 patients a day. However, on average, 7,000 patients come to the hospital every day. At its peak, the hospital even received 10,000 patients in a single day.
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