Qiu Ping sank into the soft couch, sipped her coffee and turned another page of the English-language edition of Vogue as she waited to see a doctor at Beijing United Family Hospital.
'I have been waiting for almost half an hour,' she said. 'It usually takes around 10 minutes because I only come to see the doctor by appointment.
'I chose this hospital because the service is the best in the city, and of course, the price is the highest,' the housewife said, before being distracted by the arrival of her doctor. She dropped the magazine and followed him into a consultation room.
A mainlander who lived in Germany for several years, Ms Qiu is among just a few Chinese nationals who use the hospital, one of five joint ventures the American Chindex International company has set up with local partners.
Most of the hospital's 53 doctors are bilingual, and each day they see about 300 outpatients, 80 per cent of whom are overseas citizens. The exception is the gynaecology and obstetrics department, where about half the patients are mainlanders, according to hospital spokeswoman Lily Sun.
'It costs about 60,000 yuan for a natural birth, which is many times the cost at domestic hospitals,' Ms Sun said. 'But the rising middle-class often spend lavishly on the only child they will have - it is a cultural characteristic.'
