A hospital for seriously ill prisoners in Sichuan Province was formally opened yesterday here in the provincial capital.

The first of its kind in the province, the hospital will treat prisoners suffering from a range of diseases including cancer and AIDS.

Li Xinmin, an official with the Sichuan prison administrative bureau, said: "The patients will be sent back to their original prisons to serve out their sentences after they have been treated and recuperated in the Chengdu Prisoners' Hospital."

Located near the Shuangliu International Airport in the suburbs of Chengdu, the hospital is an eight-story building and looks like any other hospital in the city - except for the heavily armed prison headquarters and dozens of prison cells inside.

Li said the hospital used to be the Sichuan Prison Police Central Hospital, treating policemen who work in prisons.

As most prisons in Sichuan are in remote and mountainous regions, many seriously ill prisoners could only seek treatment in ordinary hospitals nearby, Li said.

"Generally, they suffered from a lack of good treatment," he said.

To protect prisoners' basic rights to proper healthcare, the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Personnel and Ministry of Justice last year approved setting up the prisoners' hospital.

The chief of the hospital's surgical department, Liu Tianming, said the facility has 24 top-notch doctors in different fields.

The hospital, which will continue to offer medical services to the prison police, is also open to ordinary citizens from all walks of life, he said.

The prisoners' hospital will now be able to lessen the burden of prison police and ensure timely treatment for prisoners, Li said.

Previously, prison police had to maintain a high degree of vigilance when they sent prisoners to ordinary hospitals and when the inmates were hospitalized, for fear they would try to escape.

When prisoners sought treatment in ordinary hospitals, they also had to go through complicated procedures that could have resulted in delayed treatment, Li said.

Plans are now being made to construct a new building and add more cells for prisoners in the hospital, he said.

Construction of the building and cells is expected to be completed within three to five years' time, said He Zhengde, the chief of a group preparing for the construction of the new hospital.

Similar prisoners' hospitals already exist in Beijing and Shanghai.

(China Daily November 30, 2007)