Shanghai is to invest 600 million yuan (US$84.44 million) to build a hospital in Sanlin, Pudong New Area, to serve an anticipated 70 million visitors to World Expo Shanghai in 2010.

The Shanghai Pudong Hospital is due to open in April, 2010. The 800-bed "Expo hospital" will cover about 3.57 hectares and be eight kilometers from the Expo site.

The hospital will have a helicopter pad and be equipped with all the latest medical facilities. Though the hospital is being built for Expo, it will also serve millions of Shanghai residents after the event ends, said Fan Jincheng, deputy director of the Social Development Bureau of Pudong.

About 60 percent of families relocated to make way for the Expo site now live in Sanlin. The relocation project involved 18,000 families and 272 factories.

Medical facilities in the neighborhood are still poor, said Fan.

Sanlin has only three community medical service centers, which don't meet the needs of residents. After the hospital is built, residents will receive a higher standard of medical care, he said.

Fan said he hoped the hospital will impress people with its "people-oriented" services. For example, in the hall, the hospital will set up lower registration counters for people in wheelchairs to keep doctors closer to the patients.

(Shanghai Daily March 5, 2008)