MANY people in Shenzhen went to the hospital after the holiday suffering from cervical spondylosis due to spending long hours on their smartphones, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

    Wang Hengbin, a doctor at Shenzhen Pingle Orthopedics Hospital, said that he received over 20 patients Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, and eight of them were suffering from cervical spondylosis after using their phones for an extended period of time to get red envelopes or play games.

    Statistics showed that 5.94 billion red envelopes were sent and received by WeChat users in Guangdong during the Spring Festival holiday, the most among all provinces nationwide.

    Data from the hospital showed that the number of patients at the hospital’s emergency department grew by 30 percent this holiday compared to a year ago, while the number of patients seeing doctors for pains in the neck, shoulder, waist and legs soared by 57 percent.

    Between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, 66 out of 117 inpatients at the hospital had suffered bone fractures due to falls. Many patients also suffered lumbar disc herniations or back sprains after driving for long hours during the holiday, according to the report.

    A 10-year-old, identified as Han, suffered a bone fracture in her right leg after falling from a children’s slide in a Shenzhen park, according to her mother. The family, from Luoyang, Henan Province, traveled to Shenzhen for the holiday because of the city’s warm weather and good air quality.

    Another patient, surnamed Zhen, injured his leg while skiing in South Korea during the holiday and flew back to Shenzhen the next day for inpatient treatment at the hospital after his leg was fixed with a plaster cast in South Korea.

    Fan Peixin, director of the hospital’s emergency department, said people should take good care of the elderly and children when they are having an outing during the holiday. (Zhang Yang)