'Cancer hotels' are home from home for poorer patients

A gray, five-story building on the southeast corner of Beijing's Second Ring Road is one of the city's burgeoning "cancer hotels", where Sun Yu, from a small village in Hebei province, and her husband pay a daily rent of 40 yuan ($6.40) for one of the 10-square-meter windowless cells.

Sun, 64, who has ovarian cancer, has been a regular visitor at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Tumor Hospital since 2012. Every time she makes the 250-km journey to Beijing she stays at one of the cancer hotels, which are cheap and close to the hospitals.

Sun's cancer was diagnosed in 2012, but her condition was too advanced for surgery at her local hospital. "They told me I only had two years at most. My son said a hospital in Beijing was my last hope," she said.