The Optics Valley branch hospital of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Hubei province is currently running trials. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

The outpatient services of the Optics Valley branch hospital of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Hubei province -- located in Wuhan city in Central China's Hubei province -- started trial operations on Dec 25.

The branch will offer quality and convenient health care for women and children in Wuhan and Optics Valley, which is also known as the East Lake High-tech Development Zone.

It is the first large maternity and children's specialty hospital in the zone.

As such, it contains the largest nationwide child health center, a medical transit center for critical maternity care, a maternity and children's oncology center, a birth defects rescue and treatment center, a postnatal rehabilitation center and a specialized training center.

The branch hospital is the first branch opened by the Hubei province maternity and children's center.

As such, it has been built as a first-class facility, with a total room area of 60,000 square meters and 500 beds. Specialists from various departments of the head hospital will provide services at the Optics Valley hospital regularly.

There are 18 departments in the branch, with a daily outpatient volume of 2,000 people and it comes equipped with large-scale medical examination equipment. In the first month of trial operations, registration is free and the medical examination fee has been reduced by 30 percent.

In recent years, great attention has been paid to introducing high-quality maternity and children's medical resources to the zone.

Aside from the new branch, construction is being intensified at another children's hospital project, jointly being built by the zone with Tongji Hospital.

It will have 800 beds and is expected to open its doors in June 2022.

In addition, a number of ministry level, provincial and municipal hospitals are being built and construction of a number of community medicine projects is accelerating.

This is expected to speed up medical and health infrastructure improvements and enhance efforts to create a leading public health and medical care system.