Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang have banned all forms of religious activity in hospitals in an ongoing crackdown targeting the region’s burgeoning Protestant Christian community.
A public notice posted at the Central Hospital in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou, a city that has been dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” because of its high concentration of Christians, made patients and their visitors unequivocally aware of the new rules this week.
“Religious activities are banned in this hospital,” the notice said. The Wenzhou Central Hospital was originally set up as a Protestant hospital.
An employee who answered the phone at the same hospital…confirmed the new measures.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1557358/christianity-wenzhou-rose-humble-beginnings-one-million-adherents
From the Google-cache of http://english.wenzhou.gov.cn/art/2013/7/31/art_12822_276949.html
Wenzhou Central Hospital, formerly the Second Hospital of Wenzhou, was founded in 1897 and now is a first-class tertiary general hospital integrating medical care, research, teaching, prophylaxis, heath care and recovery. Its history dates back to Blyth Hospital and John Dingley Hospital—the earliest missionary hospitals in southern Zhejiang. The Hospital became a state-funded hospital in 1954 and was named the Second Hospital of Wenzhou by Zhejiang Provincial Heath Bureau. It was restructured by emerging with Wenzhou Medical Science Institute, Wenzhou Fifth People’s Hospital and Wenzhou Tumor Hospital from the year 2002 to 2003 and became the first medical organization of “three hospitals and one institute†in Wenzhou. In late 2008, Dingley Clinical College, a non-direct affiliated college of Wenzhou Medical College (now Wenzhou Medical University), was established. Binjiang Branch of Wenzhou 120 Emergency Station was set up in the Hospital in 2010. The Hospital got its current name in June, 2012.
And from the article in the main post:
[blockquote]Earlier this year, Zhejiang Protestant pastors and married couple Bao Guohua and Xing Wenxiang of the Holy Love Christian church were sentenced to 14 and 12 years’ imprisonment respectively by the Wucheng District People’s Court in Zhejiang’s Jinhua city after they opposed the removal of crosses.
Police-run detention centers in the province have also denied family members’ requests to deliver Bibles and food to the detained, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2015 religious freedom report.[/blockquote]
Prayers for them and their families and church.