A senior citizen passes by the Pudong New Area Geriatric Hospital in Shanghai on March 11. The facility is currently located in Xuanqiao township but is planning to move. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

 

Wang Xiaojuan, a 30-year-old housewife, has been spending her days organizing campaigns with her neighbors. Her home, in the suburb of the Pudong New Area in Shanghai, will soon have an unwelcome new neighbor - a large-scale hospital for seniors.

The Pudong New Area Geriatric Hospital is set to be moved from its current location five kilometers away from Wang's residential compound in Xinchang township. The local health commission website claims that it is the nation's first hospice. It has special hospice wards and offers accommodation, medical services, rehabilitation and nursing for seniors. 

Wang and her neighbors have been making calls to the government hotline, hanging banners and figuring out how best to protest against the move, which will place the hospital just 30 meters from their residential compound. Protesters say its capacity will be increased from 400 beds to 1,000.

When asked why she has such a strong objection to living near a hospital, Wang cited the loud noises of ambulances, but more tellingly, she mentioned the "wailing" of relatives of deceased.

"The construction site is only 30 meters away from our compound, not to mention there is a kindergarten nearby. It is unacceptable for us and our children to live in a place haunted by the shadow of death every day," Wang told the Global Times. 

Death phobia

This is not the first time residents have protested against hospices being built near their compounds. In January, residents in Yangpu district, Shanghai, complained after seeing a public notification that a hospice would be established in the densely-populated area.

Songtang Hospital, the biggest privately-owned nursing hospital and hospice in Beijing, was also forced to move several times due to protests from residents.

Gu Xiaoming, a sociology professor with Fudan University, said that many Chinese believe that death is an omen of bad luck, and people are afraid of places related to death."Residents are scared of the high death rates in hospices, where most of the occupants are terminally ill."

Tough negotiations 

Xinchang township residents believe the local government cheated them and switched the original construction plan. According to official documents published last year, the government was planning to build a 73,400-square-meter healthcare center in Xinchang township, which would include a community healthcare center and a maternal and child care service center. But last month, a hospital for seniors was listed on the adjustment notice, which would occupy 74 percent of the center.

"When we bought the apartment, no one told us there would be a hospice. If we had known, we would have chosen other place," said Wang. "There are nearly 3,000 households in the area, and a large-scale hospice should choose a less-populated, quieter place."

"We hope the hospital could be located at least four or five kilometers away, and not so close to residential compounds and a kindergarten."

But to the local health commission and current geriatric hospital, such protests seem unnecessary.

"Our hospital is not a hospice; actually the hospice care is only one of our specializations. The residents are only partly informed when it comes to this relocation," said Yan Hongguang, deputy Party secretary of the Pudong New Area Geriatric Hospital.

The hospital only has six beds for hospice care, and only one is actually put into use - just 13 people have used the hospice care bed in the past two years, Gu Weiming, director of the hospital, told the Xinmin Weekly.

According to an official with the Pudong New Area Health and Family Planning Commission, the future geriatric hospital is designed to be a city-level medical rehabilitation center, not a hospice. "The rehabilitation center will have patients recover from surgery or injuries," said the official, who refused to be named. "The disagreements are caused by misunderstandings  due to unofficial information."

Rising demand

Though residents continue to protest against hospice care, the need for these facilities has been increasing. The number of seniors above 60 years old is expected to surpass 200 million by the end of this year, and the population of disabled seniors will reach 37.5 million, according to statistics from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

In Shanghai, there are about 36,000 terminally ill patients that need hospice care every year, according to the local health commission. Some find hospital beds instead, but most end up staying at home.

In 2012, high school teacher Qin Ling wrote a public letter to Yu Zhengsheng, the then secretary of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, complaining that his father, who was in a terminal stage of cancer, was forced out of hospital and denied a bed. Yu later replied, pledging to push forward hospice care for terminally-ill patients. 

The local health bureau later issued guidelines to set up hospice centers in each of the city's 17 districts, and by the end of August 2013, there were 1,000 hospice beds in 92 district healthcare centers.

"Death is a natural part of human life, and the hospice care service benefits citizens. It is quite ridiculous to have such a reaction," Yan said.

"Patients die every day in hospital. Hospice care services could be spread out rather than gathering all terminally ill patients together, which would be good for surrounding residents and patients  as well," Gu suggested.

Even though Qin's father passed away two years ago, he can still remember the helplessness and anxiety he felt when his father was forced out of hospital. "I was once a family member of terminally-ill patient, and I felt sorry that surrounding residents had such fierce reactions to the geriatric hospital," he said."Patients and their family members are under great pressure during the treatment, and it's not easy for them to endure it."

"The government should evaluate potential risks and conduct opinion surveys before implementing any public projects or polices, and respect people's views," said Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University's School of Social Development and Public Policy.