Patients must wait for hospice care

Only one large hospital in Beijing runs a ward for terminal patients

For the past year, 82-year-old Li Jing, who has end-stage rectal cancer, has been lying in a ward at the Beijing Geriatric Hospital, her body connected to several different plastic tubes, unable to make the slightest move.

Her upper body lies flat, her eyes watching through her glasses, but her left leg is curled and slightly angled, unable to stretch out, pitching the blanket covering her knee like a small tent.