>>>please click Specials: A/H1N1 flu in China

City hospitals have been ordered to extend outpatient services and increase bed numbers to cope with a surge in patient numbers which hit a record of 17,844 at 16 major hospitals Tuesday (Nov 23).

Shenzhen Children's Hospital will extend the outpatient hours to 11 p.m. for children while many other hospitals will open until 8 p.m. All doctors and nurses treating respiratory diseases were ordered to cancel their holidays and were sent to outpatients' departments.

Shenzhen Children's Hospital had treated 3,671 children, more than twice the number for the same period in previous years, Xie Ruosi, inspector of the Shenzhen health, population and family planning commission, said yesterday (Nov 24).

"The increase has forced us to increase the number of beds to 500 and open an observation room for patients in less serious conditions,” said Liu Jun, director of the hospital's medical department.

Shenzhen No. 1 People's Hospital had 2,354 patients presenting for treatment and Shenzhen No. 2 People's Hospital treated 2,234 people Tuesday, said Xie.

All of the patients had respiratory diseases, but none was in serious condition.

"Many people caught ordinary flu and fever due to the weather and they were very afraid of getting the A/H1N1, so they all rushed to big city hospitals for treatment", said Xie.

"There are too many people in the hospitals with fever. I was told I had to wait more than five hours for emergency treatment. That's crazy", a resident surnamed Wang said yesterday at Shenzhen No. 1 People' Hospital.

The city reported 1,198 cases of A/H1N1 flu as of Tuesday night, 16 in a serious condition. About 106,403 people had been vaccinated by Tuesday night, 50,297 of whom were students.

Three children were still in danger and surviving on life-support machines at Shenzhen Children's Hospital yesterday.