In the latest series of events stoking the tensions between Hong Kongers and Mainlanders, Cheung Wan Lai, director of hospital groups at the Hospital Authority, revealed that the quota for foreigners giving birth in Hong Kong has been reduced from 10,000 in 2011 to just 3,400 in 2012. more ›

And by AHHH, we mean a scream of the viscerally disgusting get-it-away-from-me variety. A dentist working at Zhongshan Hosptial in Shanghai's far western district of Qingpu (青浦区) has been detained for sticking his genitals in a woman's mouth during surgery on Friday. more ›

It looks like local hospitals and funeral homes are in quite a predicament. Over half their mortuary drawers are being occupied by unclaimed bodies, thus leaving little space for new dead patients. This is not so much a problem for the recently deceased, but more of a problem for hospitals and funeral homes as this waste is imposing a huge financial burden and causing a waste of public resources. more ›

Did finding out the sanitation situation not scare you off crayfish? Then how about muscle degeneration? Dozens of people in Nanjing were struck down with a strange form of food poisoning from our little lobster friends: rhabdomyolysis. more ›

Gross news from around China: netizens and health officials have been in an uproar over a recent post from a farmer in Chengdu who used blood plasma taken from a local hospital to water his fields. Upon visiting a friend in the hospital, the man found a packet of blood plasma discarded in the trash, so he took it home and proudly posted pictures of himself on the internet mixing the plasma with water and claiming that the protein inside will help his crops grow. The Chengdu Health Ministry said it was aware of the situation, and would do its best to find those at fault for improperly disposing of perfectly good plasma. Click the link for disturbing pictures! more ›

To be wrongly put into an asylum has been a staple of horror fiction, but this nightmare actually happened to a woman in Xiamen. Mrs. Wu, who originally went to her hospital to cure her high blood prolactin (PRL) was identified as "mentally challenged" and forced into an asylum for 22 days, according to Netease. more ›

We're coming into the most dangerous time for sudden deaths of working people in Shanghai. According to Xinmin, the low atmospheric pressure and high humidity level of the damp spring weather will increase the number of sudden deaths of people from age 35 to 50. More than 70% of the patients will pass away before getting to the hospital. more ›

The mother of a 4-year-old girl who died in Shanghai No. 5 People's Hospital after suffering severe beatings was charged with child abuse yesterday. The girl was taken to hospital by her stepfather on Januray the 8, but had already died once they got there. Hospital staff noticed several cuts and bruises on her body. more ›

At midnight on Monday, our friend was returning from a friend's house at 88 Huichuan Lu in Chang Ning district when a red taxi pulled out from a driveway, hit a man and drove away. He heard the sound and saw the man on the ground with a pool of blood from his head and his body twisted in an awkward position. The taxi drove off and Clark was the sole witness on the street except for a Brazilian woman, who also saw it happen. They assumed the man was dead, but called Guanxi and tried to get through to a hospital. From our friend:

Last night (Monday) I was returning from a friend's home around midnight. When I stepped outside, I heard a noise and it disturbed me. As I got closer to the road, I saw a red taxi speed away and a man's body on the ground. There was a Brazilian lady outside and she and I both stood still staring at him. I ran over to him, asking him if he was ok.. but he did not move and I saw the blood. The Brazilian lady asked if I knew number to hospital and I didn't. more ›

We were walking to the metro station the other day when we saw these posters outside a defunct spa at No. 1855 Xinzha Lu, near Yanping Lu. Upon closer inspection, it seems that residents are not pleased because they have not been consulted on the proposed opening of a senior citizens' hospital on the first to third floors of their residential complex. more ›

By Mike Chen more ›

You can pluck a Chinese patient away from the hospital, but you will never snatch his cell phone away from him! Photo from Tim Johnson of China Rises. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.... more ›

We seriously LOVE some of the things we hear about going on in our city. Yes, some of the people we meet here can be harsh and mean, but this story goes to show that humanity still exists in Shanghai. Two weeks ago, Rebekah Pothaar, an executive with Ctrip.com, found that her ayi's husband was in a serious motorbike collision. They went with her to the hospital and found that surgery was going to cost... more ›

Two weeks ago, when we told you that China's new labour law was going to be a big, big thing, we had no idea it would also be the cause of some serious blood-letting. Local gangs and triads have been attacking the Shenzhen Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre which has been instrumental in providing legal advice for rural migrant workers and informing them about their rights under the new labour law. In separate attacks, they shattered... more ›

This morning at 7.50am, an explosion occurred at a China Petroleum gas station located on the cross junction of Yanggao Nanlu and Pusan Lu (杨高南路、浦三路口) in Pudong. Two died on the spot, two died on the way to hospital, two remain seriously injured, and many more are injured. As a result of the blast, a metal tank was displaced 50 meters, the cars that were parked nearby were damaged, and glass windows in several neighbouring office and residential apartments were shattered. Was any Shanghaiist in the neighbourhood? more ›

If you, like us, are already cursing the arrival of winter, watch this. There is a little 5 year old girl in Jiangxi who is still prancing around in her birthday suit, and revelling in the cold waters as if its still summer. Her parents say that since she turned one, the girl started showing her great dislike for clothes. She goes to bed nightly without even a blanket on, and if someone actually tried... more ›

Overheard in the comment section of our earlier story on the Chongqing cooking oil stampede was the opinion that the pushing and shoving here in Shanghai is much worse than in Chongqing. Agreed. We see so many potential stampedes happening here everyday and wonder why more people are not getting tromped to death on a daily basis here. But this story by the Financial Times tells us a similar cooking oil stampede that occurred right here in Shanghai two weeks ago, at Tesco's (which we have confirmed from other sources to be the one in Baoshan district). Fortunately, nobody died in that stampede, but 19 people, mostly housewives, did need immediate treatment at the hospital. more ›

Ladies (and guys with long hair), resist from buying those cheap hair bands you find at the mom and pop stores in your 'hood because the news is out that some of them are made from USED condoms. China Daily cites an unnamed dermatologist with the Guangzhou Hospital of Armed Police who says viruses and bacteria abound on these hair bands recycled from condoms and users could be infected with AIDS, genital warts and other... more ›

A record number of more than 10,500 Chinese Muslims are expected to fulfill their pilgrimages to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, according to the Islamic Association of China (IAC) Sunday. more ›

More than a dozen prominent Singapore celebrities have come out in support of a new parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A in the city-state's Penal Code which outlaws “acts of gross indecency” between men by appearing in a Youtube video uploaded recently. more ›

We just received news that North Korea has expressed its intention to attend the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. How exciting is that, people! more ›

A New Zealand-born contestant of the first series of Big Brother Australia, Gordon Sloan, has died in Beijing on a suspected heroin overdose. more ›

Netizen "fyliumin" has sent in the following vid to Youku.com with the following comment: more ›

Zhejiang Satellite TV's Citizens Take Action 《绿原公民行动》has uncovered the most extraordinary story of a woman, Wang Xiaocui (王晓翠) who has been rescued from an underground hole in Lin County, Lu Liang District, Shanxi Province. Barely 2 square meters in area, the hole was home for Wang, and this was where she would eat, drink, sleep and take care of ALL her bodily functions everyday for six long years. more ›

DUE TO ITS SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC NATURE, THE PHOTO ASSOCIATED WITH THIS STORY APPEARS AFTER THE JUMP. more ›

Shandong Province's Qilu TV has struck yet again with another quirky news story featured in its daily news program last Thursday -- this time of a woman who starts barking like a mad dog after getting bitten by a mad dog. In the video clip, one sees the poor woman coughing, wheezing, panting and barking like a dog, seemingly uncontrollable. She has to be restrained with cables tied to the couch, which in turn is tied to a 20kg rock. Apparently, her husband has brought her to the hospital, but none of the doctors admitted her for fear that she might start attacking them other patients? more ›

A female toddler that has experienced swelling of the breasts and menstruation at 15 months of age has been cited by doctors at the Nanjiing Children's Hospital as an extreme example of the rise in the number of cases of precocious puberty all across China. more ›

On the right is a powerful photo story of a 16 year old village prostitute, Ah-V, who eloped with her boyfriend Xiaowu from Guizhou to an unnamed province, and to make ends meet, Xiaowu makes Ah-V prostitute herself. Along the way, of course, Ah-V gets pregnant, and has to go for an abortion, but she is so poor that the only thing worth money in her possessions is a broken fan which she got from a rag-and-bone dealer for RMB10. As a result, because she couldn't pay for her hospital bed, they put her on drip by the door of her home. more ›