Pediatric care has diminished significantly for California's 10 million children in the past decade, it was reported on Saturday.

More than 65 hospitals have either eliminated their children's units or shut down altogether even as the number of children has grown, the Los Angeles Times said.

Meanwhile, more than two dozen others have reduced the number of beds for children, according to the paper.

In all, more than 800 in-patient children's beds were lost from 1998 through 2007 -- a 19-percent drop, said the paper.

"Hospitals have cut back on services for children without serious, coordinated analysis of how the losses statewide could affect the quality of care, particularly as many regions expect a population increase," the paper noted.

This has led to widespread worries among healthcare experts that with the economic downturn forcing even more hospitals to the brink of closure, the condition of the children's healthcare system in the state reflects the ad hoc manner in which many decisions affecting life and death are made, the paper said.

Faced with shrinking budgets, many California hospitals have been forced to shift resources toward adults, who receive higher state and federal subsidies, according to the paper.

"In California, things are a mess," pediatrician Paul Wise, a children's health policy researcher at Stanford University, was quoted as saying. "There seems to be a lack of any coherent monitoring or oversight."

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2009)