Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    SPEAKING to reporters in a hospital building in Longgang District on Friday, Yang Lihuai said Shenzhen Longcheng Hospital is planning to build a 1,200-bed health-care center on a 18,900-square-meter lot that the hospital has obtained.

    Yang, chairwoman of the hospital, said the 13-year-old private hospital has exhibited fast growth in recent years thanks to government support of private investment in the medical care sector.

    The Longcheng hospital has become one of the largest rehabilitation hospitals in Guangdong Province, according to hospital president Wang Yulin.

    The Longcheng hospital was the last stop of a weeklong media spotlight on Shenzhen medical reform. Shenzhen was tasked to pilot medical reform in 2010 and has invested heavily in making all-around improvements.

    The Shenzhen city government started to encourage private investment in the sector three years ago. The city’s health commission said in July last year that the city government would offer a reward of 20 million yuan (US$3.27 million) to private investors who set up, or upgraded a medical facility to, a top-level hospital in Shenzhen, and provide a variety of other types of financial support, including a 20-yuan subsidy to hospitals for every outpatient they receive and a 60-yuan subsidy for every in-patient, to encourage private investment in the city’s health care.

    Specialized hospitals such as children’s hospitals will get a slightly higher subsidy. Hospitals can get a tax refund of up to 40 percent of its taxes paid the previous financial year and can also can get a 700,000-yuan subsidy for building new research and treatment centers.

    Shenzhen Pingle Orthopedic Hospital was the first to obtain the 20-million-yuan reward.

    Among all Chinese cities, Shenzhen offers the most impressive financial support to private investment, which has seen encouraging results, according to the city’s health commission.

    By the end of last year, Shenzhen has 2,869 private health-care institutions, including 75 hospitals, which processed 24 percent of the city’s total outpatient services and 15 percent of the city’s inpatient services last year.

    Investors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are also welcome. Five Hong Kong-invested clinics have been established since C-MER (Shenzhen) Dennis Lam Eye Hospital became China’s first private hospital funded solely by Hong Kong capital in 2013.

    Basic health-care services, excluding elective procedures such as plastic surgery, are required to account for least 50 percent of all the medical services offered at these hospitals to be eligible for the financial support.