The first outpatient department for men in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region opened last Friday, department director Liang Jihong said.

The department, attached to the No.1 Hospital of the Guangxi University of Medical Science, is equipped with an audio-visual center for sexual education, an operation room for sexual dysfunction and an ED test room.
   
It offers services round the clock in internal and surgical medicine, combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicine and andrology.
   
"The medical devices here are advanced not only in Guangxi, butalso nationwide," Liang acknowledged.
   
The announcement coincides with the Fifth National Men's Health Day, which falls on Thursday last week. The day was set in 2000 by the then State Family Planning Commission to increase public awareness of men's health issues.
   
Nine out of ten Chinese men with sexual problems are unwilling to see doctors, thus missing the best chance for treatment, a Chinese physician said.
   
A recent survey showed that 6.5 percent male Chinese suffer from venereal disease and 10 percent of Chinese couples are troubled by sterility.
   
Medical institutions in China fail to attach due importance to men's health and should promote awareness, Liang said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2004)