Many hospitals in China have stopped offering newborn delivery services this year, state-backed news outlet Daily Economic News reported, with industry experts warning of an “obstetric winter” due to declining demand amid a record drop in new births, reports Reuters. Hospitals in various provinces including in eastern Zhejiang and southern Jiangxi have in the past two months announced that they will close their obstetric departments, according to notices viewed by Reuters.
The Fifth People’s Hospital of Ganzhou City in Jiangxi said on its official WeChat account that obstetric services would be suspended from March 11.
Zhejiang’s Jiangshan Hospital of Traditional Medicine announced on its WeChat page that its obstetrics business would stop from Feb. 1.