An incident at a hospital in Pengshui county has highlighted the difficulty facing many impoverished couples over expensive medical bills.

The situation arose after a husband refused to OK a blood transfusion for his critically ill wife after she lost one-quarter of her blood following complications in the delivery room.

He said they could not afford the transfusion.

Staff at Xinqiao hospital in Chongqing municipality decided unilaterally to save the life of the 37-year-old mother, Tan Fangju, a migrant worker, and succeeded in stopping the bleeding.

"It's several hundred yuan for a pack of blood. We cannot afford it," local newspaper Chongqing Evening News reported Tan's husband, Yang Guangyou, 43, also from Pengshui, as saying.

Yang said his wife had natural labor twice before without incident.

Head nurse Zhong Xushu, who was present that day, told China Daily "the husband turned a deaf ear to the fact that his wife had lost 1,000 ml, or one-quarter of her blood because of severe contraction in her womb."

Staff at the hospital say the couple should have paid a 20,000 yuan ($2,900) medical bill but left hospital on Thursday and are out of reach.

Basic medical insurance in China does not cover the cost of delivering a baby. Usually, it costs around 4,000 yuan to give birth.

The State's social security authority says only around 77.55 million of China's 1.3 billion population bought maternity insurance in 2007. Many couples flee hospital each year without paying the large medical bills, said Zhang Yunfu, a director from the Xinqiao Hospital.

"I understand they might be have financial difficulties, but I feel more disappointed when our whole-hearted efforts were met by his bitter words," said the nurse.

(China Daily August 29, 2009)