Large military hospital built for South China Sea actions

A large military hospital newly built on Hainan Island indicates that China’s hard-line attitude in South China Sea is not merely bluffing.

Hong Kong’s Ming Pao says that Chinese military’s “PLA Daily” quoted Major General Li Shuzhang, President of PLA General Hospital, “the large military medical city in Sanya, Hainan that was formally commissioned last month as the Hainan Branch of the PLA General Hospital, will be deployed to ensure provision of medical services to the officers and soldiers at Xisha and Nansha Islands so as the enhance the combat capability and provide logistical guarantee for major military actions”

The Hainan branch hospital is located at Haitang Bay, SanyaCity with a land area of 60 hectares. It bagab construction in August 2009 and was completed and put into trial operation at the end of last year and formal operation on June 9. Li Shuzhang told “PLA Daily” that construction of the branch hospital was a policy decision of the CPC Central Committee and Central Military Commission. The Commission requires that the hospital shall be built into a first-class first aid and treatment base for battle and first-class health and recuperation base for cadres.

Li Shuzhang said that building the medical city aimed at improving and ensuring the medical service standards for the garrison, enhancing the combat capability of the troops stationed on islands and ensuring officers’ and soldiers’ physical and mental health. The hospital is making efforts to improve its capability to provide ensured services for military struggles. It will establish as soon as possible emergency health logistic safeguarding for both piece and war time so as to “improve overall aids and treatment for major military actions and marine actions and set up a three dimensional sea, land and air emergency aids and treatment system”.

Li said that stationed at a forward position of the South China Sea, the Hainan branch mainly serves the troops on the first line, especially provides health, disease prevention, first aids and treatment for the troops guarding the islands and reefs and basic-level officers and soldiers on special duties. In the future, it will continue to strengthen all-round coordination with its parent hospital in Beijing and conduct long-distance consultations of doctors, etc. to extend the range of the branch’s service of first aids and treatment in order to “do a good job in providing medical safeguarding services for the officers and soldiers on Nansha and Xisha Islands”.

PLA General Hospital was formerly called “PLA 301st Hospital”, an army-level unit under PLA General Logistics Department responsible for providing medical and health services for party, government and military leaders. Being  the first branch it has ever established in another place, its Hainan branch has therefore got the nickname of “Hainan 301”. The branch is a division-level unit staffed with over 1,000 medical workers all selected from the Beijing headquarters.

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