Free contraception from public hospitals in Xi'an

Residents in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, will get free contraception drugs and tools in public hospitals with their ID cards.

According to the Health and Family Planning Commission of Xi'an city, the service will be provided in November after the 1,000 machines for delivering contraception drugs and tools are completely installed in the hospitals over the city's districts and counties.

Ni Guangtian, director of the commission, said that Xi'an is listed as one of the pilot cities for free contraception drugs and tools providing service, and gets the machines free from the central government.

"We will make preparations and check the places for installing the machines from now till August 20, and then will complete the installation of the machines in the hospitals from Sept 1 to October 31.

And then residents can get the contraception drugs and tools with their ID cards," the director said.

In order to reduce waste, Ni said, the machines will be set with a limit that a resident can get the drugs and condoms once a month by putting his ID card on the machine which will check if the resident has exceeded the limit.

The contraception drugs and tools in the machines will be provided by the local governmental family planning administrative department with public funds, Ni said.