A ceremony was held yesterday to lay the foundation for the city's No. 3 People's Hospital, which is currently known as the Shenzhen Donghu Hospital, at its new site in Longgang District.

The new hospital will move patients with highly contagious diseases away from the densely populated areas, and will be particularly useful if any large-scale epidemic breaks out in Shenzhen or neighboring cities like Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai.

The Donghu Hospital currently located in the crowded Luohu District will be relocated to the new site in Buji, Longgang after construction is finished.

The 700-million-yuan (US$87.5 million) project is expected to serve 2,000 outpatients daily, and has more than 500 beds for inpatients. The 82,000-square-meter new hospital is also expected to be among the top epidemic hospitals in the country with its advanced facilities and high-quality services.

"Inpatients with different epidemic diseases will be carefully separated to avoid cross-infection," said Zhou Boping, director of the hospital, at the ceremony. He said staff, patients and medical waste will have different entry and exit passages for hygiene reasons.

"There is also an underground 2,100-square-meter emergency center in our blueprint, for the purpose of any biochemical or terrorist attacks in the future," he said.

The long overdue project was first scheduled to begin construction in 2004. It faced great pressure and opposition from nearby residents, who believed the new project would bring contamination and even epidemic diseases to their living environment.

The hospital, together with three other public healthcare projects, namely the surgery building in the Shenzhen People's Hospital, a new site for the city's disease control and prevention center and the Binhai Hospital, were listed as the projects in which officials will be held accountable for delays in construction. Officials in charge of the projects are required to make regular reports on the construction to the municipal supervision bureau.

The Donghu Hospital, which opened in 1985, is the only epidemic hospital serving Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai.

Editor: Yan