Four more hospitals have cancelled obstetrics and neonatology departments.
Author: Xiao Xiang
来源｜看医界（ID：vistamed）
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4 hospitals cancelled obstetric subjects
Recently, the Health Bureau of Pingchang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan Province issued an "Announcement on the Cancellation of Obstetrics and Other Diagnosis and Treatment Subjects of 4 Medical and Health Institutions including Pingchang County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital", which shows that the obstetrics specialty has been cancelled by Pingchang County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, the Second People's Hospital of Pingchang County, the Central Health Center of Banmiao Town, and the Central Health Center of Banmiao Town, Pingchang County, and Jianglong Hospital of Pingchang County have all cancelled obstetrics and neonatology specialties.
According to public information, among the four medical institutions, Pyeongchang County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital is a third-class comprehensive traditional Chinese medicine hospital with 500 beds; The Second People's Hospital of Pyeongchang County is a second-class general hospital with 500 beds. The Central Health Center of Banmiao Town, Pyeongchang County, was founded in 2004 and is a comprehensive health center. Pyeongchang Ganglong Hospital was established in 2012 as a private hospital.
The announcement said that from the date of the announcement, the Pyeongchang County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, the Second People's Hospital of Pyeongchang County, the Central Health Center of Banmiao Town, Pyeongchang County, and the Pyeongchang Jianglong Hospital will no longer carry out midwifery technology, neonatal treatment and other diagnosis and treatment services, and relevant units and individuals shall no longer carry out diagnosis and treatment activities in the name of the cancelled diagnosis and treatment subjects, and violators will be investigated for legal responsibility in accordance with the law.
The announcement also publicized the medical institutions that can carry out midwifery medical services in Pyeongchang County, among which the Pyeongchang County Maternal and Child Health Hospital is the Pyeongchang Branch of the Sichuan Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and in 2023, the Pyeongchang County People's Government will cooperate with the Sichuan Maternal and Child Health Hospital to run a medical hospital and build the Pyeongchang Branch of the Sichuan Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital. Sichuan Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital will be built into a tertiary maternal and child health care hospital within 3 years, and within 3 to 5 years, the Pingchang County Maternal and Child Health Hospital will be built into a regional medical center for women and children in northeastern Sichuan.
Pyeongchang County, once the most populous county in Bazhong City, had a permanent population of 633,100 at the end of 2023, and official data shows that the population of Pyeongchang County has continued to decline in the past decade, with the seventh census decreasing by 200,000 compared to the sixth census. According to the statistics of the Bazhong Municipal Public Security Household Registration System, in recent years, the number of newborn babies in Bazhong has also shown a downward trend, with a total of 25,381 newborn babies in the city in 2022 and 22,356 newborns in Bazhong in 2023, a decrease of more than 10% in one year.
Since the beginning of this year, the obstetrics departments of many hospitals have been closed
It is understood that in addition to the one-time cancellation of obstetrics and neonatal diagnosis and treatment specialties in four hospitals, since the beginning of this year, many hospitals have closed their obstetrics.
In March 2024, the Fifth People's Hospital of Ganzhou City issued an announcement, stating that according to the hospital's discipline development plan, the hospital will stop obstetric services from March 11, 2024.
The Dingnan South Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, also in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, also announced that from February 1, 2024, the hospital's midwifery technical services will cease to be carried out, and the "Birth Medical Certificate" will no longer be issued in accordance with the spirit of the document, and the four-dimensional color ultrasound diagnosis and prenatal screening business during pregnancy will no longer be carried out, and the general obstetric examination and general obstetric color ultrasound business will be retained.
At the same time, obstetric services were also suspended by the Jiangshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Zhejiang Province. According to the hospital announcement, according to the actual situation of the hospital's obstetrics business, from February 1, the hospital will no longer carry out obstetrics (flat birth, cesarean section) business, and other prenatal examinations, fertility outpatient clinics (ring release, ring removal, abortion, fetal protection, pre-pregnancy consultation), gynecology and other businesses will be carried out normally.
This is only a few hospitals that have publicly issued announcements this year, and since last year, the closure of obstetrics departments and the adjustment of obstetric business in many hospitals have attracted attention many times.
The number of births fell by nearly 10 million in 8 years
At the end of February, Duan Tao, a well-known obstetrics and gynecology expert and professor of a maternity and infant health hospital in Shanghai, published an article on his personal WeChat account entitled "Saving Obstetrics", which attracted the attention of the industry. Duan Tao said that the predicament of obstetrics is not a day or two.
"Since last year, when I have meetings with many obstetric directors, everyone sighs. In 2016, the number of births was 17.86 million, and last year, the number of publicly reported births was 9.02 million, a decrease of nearly 10 million. ”
The declining fertility rate and the declining number of newborns are social realities that are difficult to ignore at present, and in this context, obstetrics will inevitably face the impact head-on.
"Doctor Do", a well-known medical V and a doctor at a tertiary hospital in Wuhan, said that the current situation of obstetrics in many hospitals is complicated.
"For large general hospitals, it is generally required that the obstetrics department reduce the number of wards and wards, for example, before you were given 50 beds, now you are asked to give up half of the beds to other departments with more abundant diseases. This kind of only allowing you to reduce the number of beds and wards is often considered a better situation, after all, this department has been reserved. And some smaller hospitals even had to close the entire obstetrics department directly. ”
Dr. Do believes that some private hospitals with obstetrics as their main department used to focus on improving the service experience, such as driving to pick up the mother and send the mother and child home after discharge, and the entire hospital is almost entirely dependent on the obstetrics.
Resource integration, transformation... Self-help in obstetrics
In fact, as early as when the capital entered the field of obstetrics and gynecology with enthusiasm, many people in the industry have begun to worry about the future market competition, therefore, many private medical institutions that started with women and children began to abandon the idea of "eating out of households" in a field, and began to transform to general practice, women's health management, gynecology and children, consumer medical care, and even assisted reproduction and other upstream and downstream related disciplines.
In the face of the decline in the number of deliveries, some prefecture-level hospitals have begun to integrate resources and explore ways out of transformation.
In January 2024, the gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, child care, and vaccination departments of the three hospitals of Sichuan Yilong County People's Hospital, the County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the County Maternal and Child Health Hospital will be optimized and integrated.
Earlier, in November 2020, the obstetrics and gynecology and pediatric resources of the two county hospitals in Danling County, Meishan City, Sichuan Province were optimized and integrated. It is reported that in addition to the retention of pediatric emergency department, all related health care businesses of Danling County People's Hospital were merged into Danling County Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and the latter added the third hospital area of Danling County People's Hospital to realize the all-round optimization and integration of personnel, technology, equipment, information and other element resources.
In Jiangxi, in May 2020, the official website of the Hukou County People's Government issued a notice, which mentioned that the original obstetrics and gynecology department of the county traditional Chinese medicine hospital was all included in the county maternal and child health hospital to realize the optimal integration of personnel, technology, equipment, information and other element resources. Since May 1, 2020, the county traditional Chinese medicine hospital has ceased obstetrics and gynecology-related health care business.
In addition to resource integration, some medical institutions have also begun to explore the extension of medical services for women and children throughout the life cycle on the basis of obstetrics.
Professor Duan Tao has previously given suggestions: the first is to transform from a single obstetric business to medical services for the whole life cycle of obstetrics, gynecology and children. After the transformation, customers go from birth, to adolescence, to marriage and childbirth, and even menopause...... Once you get a customer, your lifelong medical needs may come to you, forming a long-term sustainable and organic related growth.
The second is the transition from obstetrician and gynaecologist to female general practitioner. Women's health problems at all stages are not caused by a single factor, such as mental problems that often accompany pregnancy and childbirth, various endocrine diseases during menopause, which cannot be treated comprehensively by obstetricians in the traditional sense, but can be done by general practitioners.
With the same logic, obstetrics and gynecology should gradually realize the transformation from solving women's simple medical needs to helping women be healthy, beautiful and confident. In the future, doctors will no longer be a single medical consultation, but a gatekeeper of women's health, beauty and confidence, so that women can maintain a healthy, confident and beautiful state for life. (This article is published by "Seeing the Medical World", and reprinting must be authorized, and the author and source should be indicated at the beginning of the article.) ）