A hospital for seriously ill prisoners in Sichuan Province was
formally opened yesterday here in the provincial capital.
The first of its kind in the province, the hospital will treat
prisoners suffering from a range of diseases including cancer and
AIDS.
Li Xinmin, an official with the Sichuan prison administrative
bureau, said: "The patients will be sent back to their original
prisons to serve out their sentences after they have been treated
and recuperated in the Chengdu Prisoners' Hospital."
Located near the Shuangliu International Airport in the suburbs
of Chengdu, the hospital is an eight-story building and looks like
any other hospital in the city - except for the heavily armed
prison headquarters and dozens of prison cells inside.
Li said the hospital used to be the Sichuan Prison Police
Central Hospital, treating policemen who work in prisons.
As most prisons in Sichuan are in remote and mountainous
regions, many seriously ill prisoners could only seek treatment in
ordinary hospitals nearby, Li said.
"Generally, they suffered from a lack of good treatment," he
said.
To protect prisoners' basic rights to proper healthcare, the
National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Personnel
and Ministry of Justice last year approved setting up the
prisoners' hospital.
The chief of the hospital's surgical department, Liu Tianming,
said the facility has 24 top-notch doctors in different fields.
The hospital, which will continue to offer medical services to
the prison police, is also open to ordinary citizens from all walks
of life, he said.
The prisoners' hospital will now be able to lessen the burden of
prison police and ensure timely treatment for prisoners, Li
said.
Previously, prison police had to maintain a high degree of
vigilance when they sent prisoners to ordinary hospitals and when
the inmates were hospitalized, for fear they would try to
escape.
When prisoners sought treatment in ordinary hospitals, they also
had to go through complicated procedures that could have resulted
in delayed treatment, Li said.
Plans are now being made to construct a new building and add
more cells for prisoners in the hospital, he said.
Construction of the building and cells is expected to be
completed within three to five years' time, said He Zhengde, the
chief of a group preparing for the construction of the new
hospital.
Similar prisoners' hospitals already exist in Beijing and
Shanghai.
(China Daily November 30, 2007)