Concerns Grow as Children’s Hospitals in Northern China Face Overcrowding and Long Wait Times for Patients

2023-11-24 13:13:00
Waiting times to see doctors extend for hours, with hundreds of patients lining up at some children’s hospitals in major cities across northern China, according to government media, Chinese social media platforms, and the American CNN news network.
The world is looking with concern at the health situation in China, as the city of Wuhan in the center of the country was the birthplace of the Corona virus in late 2019, and the devastating repercussions it caused on the health and economic situation for years around the world.
On Tuesday, an official at Beijing Children’s Hospital told state media that the current average of more than 7,000 patients per day “far exceeds the hospital’s capacity.”
In the neighboring city of Tianjin, the largest children’s hospital broke a record on Saturday, receiving more than 13,000 children in its outpatient and emergency departments, according to a local state-run outlet.
When CNN called to inquire about booking times at the Friendship Hospital in Beijing on Thursday, the specialist employee said that it may take a whole day to see a pediatrician.
Health officials in Beijing and other major cities in northern China said seasonal illnesses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as mycoplasma pneumonia, a bacterial infection that is usually mild and affects children, were the reasons behind the overcrowding in hospitals.
The rise in case numbers across northern China coincides with an increase in seasonal respiratory infections in the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States, where respiratory syncytial virus is spreading at “unprecedented” levels among children.
But the situation in China has raised global concern, after the World Health Organization asked the country, on Wednesday, to provide more information about the increase in respiratory diseases and “undiagnosed pneumonia in children.”
However, after speaking with health and hospital officials in China on Thursday, the World Health Organization said data indicates an increase in outpatient consultations and hospitalizations of children due to pneumonia (mycoplasma) in May, and common seasonal diseases, adenovirus and influenza virus, since October. First past.
The World Health Organization said: “Some of these increases occurred earlier in the season than happened historically, but they are expected given the lifting of Corona restrictions, as has similarly happened in other countries.”
The organization added that the Chinese authorities did not detect any unusual or new pathogens, or unusual clinical symptoms.
Experts monitoring the situation indicated that there was no evidence of the emergence of a new pathogen, but called on China to share more information about the health situation with the public.
“We don’t think there is an unknown pathogen hiding somewhere,” Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biomedical Sciences, told CNN. “There is no evidence of that.”
But Katherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at Deakin University in Australia, confirmed that the main concern is whether the rise in cases of pneumonia in children indicates a new pathogen, or new levels of disease severity.
“So far, we have not heard reports of either,” she said, adding that “it is important to monitor sources of infection to rule out such concerns.”
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