Positive prognosis for hospitals

US director of healthcare company is confident dramatic improvements will continue

The idea of setting up a network of hospitals and clinics in China offering obstetrics care came to Roberta Lipson after seeing women sharing a room during childbirth.

Lipson, from the United States, witnessed the scene when she accompanied a pregnant Chinese friend to a Beijing hospital in the late 1980s, a time when the country was undergoing a baby boom.

"I was surprised, but it wasn't because the hospitals only wanted to treat the patient in such a mechanical way," said Lipson, who first arrived in Beijing in 1979 as a marketing manager for a trading company.