Children paying price for shortage of doctors

Target set to ensure one pediatrician for every 1,450 children by 2020

Children get treatment at Beijing Children's Hospital in December. ZOU HONG/CHINA DAILY

"There are so many people and so few doctors," said Chen Yang as he sat in a waiting room at Beijing Children's Hospital late last month.

He had rushed his 6-month-old nephew to hospital early in the afternoon after noticing the child had suddenly developed a severe cough, and at 10 pm, he was still waiting for the result of a chest X-ray.

"There were hundreds of people ahead of us waiting to see a doctor when we arrived," he said. "There were long lines everywhere, and the information desk was crowded with patients."

His nephew was eventually diagnosed with pneumonia and prescribed a series of saline drips, which meant returning to play the same waiting game for the next three days.

Chen's experience is a common one, not just at Beijing Children's Hospital, one of the best in the capital, but at similar clinics nationwide.

China is short of nearly 90,000 pediatricians, according to a white paper released in November by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, which has warned that the universal two-child policy could pile on even more pressure.

With just one pediatrician per 1,800 children, the nation currently lags behind many developed countries, according to the report, which is based on a survey of 13,000 medical institutions nationwide. Earlier last year, the central government set a target of making it one pediatrician per 1,450 children by 2020.