IN a bid to make it fairer for expectant mothers who would like to give birth to their children at the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital, the hospital conducted an open draw Monday to provide 225 appointments for obstetric services.
Among the 1,136 expectant mothers who have registered for the draw, only 782 of them were qualified for the draw that took place Monday.
“We had to adopt this very primitive method of placing the information of the over 700 qualified participants into a box,” said Lo Chung-mau, the hospital’s president. “For those who failed to obtain an opportunity this time, they will have a chance to join the next draw if they still meet the requirements.”
The hospital announced that it would arrange a draw every week and each time will provide no less than 120 appointments for obstetric services. It is estimated that the hospital will offer 6,500 appointments a year.
The hospital resorted to such a method due to appointment tickets for obstetric services having been occupied by scalpers for a long time, which made it hard for residents to make an appointment by phone. One ticket was even sold for around 4,000 yuan (US$582.16).
It is believed that doing draws will prevent scalpers from taking up all the valuable medical resources for profit. However, rumor has it that the scalpers are planning a way to maintain their illicit business.
At the first draw, one in every three expectant mothers won a chance, but most of them were satisfied with the method as it was more fair and transparent.
The hospital said it tried to take everything into account in order to avoid human errors or intervention.
Before the draw, special inspectors were assigned to verify the registered information of the qualified expectant mothers, and local MPC deputies were invited to draw the winners. The whole process was video recorded.
One of the deputies, Yang Qin, said that the whole process was absolutely open and supervised by many people, which left no chance for the scalpers.
(Zhang Qian)
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