The Beijing Olympic Village, the No. 1 village in the world

Emergency zone of the Polyclinic in Olympic Village

General information

Within the Village, near the east gate, there are two three-story gray administration office buildings: Building A and B. Building A provides sports information and is home to the clinic, otherwise known as the "hospital."

It is a comprehensive clinic with a staff of 626 doctors and nurses who are among the 3,223 medical staff directly participating in the Olympic medical support program. Its major responsibilities are providing emergency, initial medical and healthcare services for more than 16,000 athletes and officials during the Olympic Games. In addition, the clinic will provide doping control testing for the IOC 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The first and second floors are arranged with a dozen hospital departments including emergency, dermatology, internal medicine, sports medicine, surgery, orthopedics physiotherapy, and even gynecology, mainly concerned with the treatment of sports injuries. Each department occupies a portion of the floors. On the right side are four emergency departments. The clinic has two advanced NMR sets as well as 5 ultrasonic sets, 1 dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanner and several electrocardiographs.

On the third floor there is a "restricted area," reserved for doping control services and responsible for the tests obtained from the random selection of athletes for drug analysis.

Why is it a clinic?

The clinic is not a "modern hospital" as reported in the media. It is an officially named clinic in every sense of the word or a state-of-the-art clinic. It does not include an in-patient department, nor does it perform operations. Mainly, it treats common cases of sports related injuries or gives preliminary treatment before sending a patient to a general hospital.

The clinic is established within the Olympic Village, as required by the IOC, to provide medical counseling and rehabilitation help. Research into past Olympic Games reveal that sports injuries are most common for athletes who suffer in competitions or training. Therefore, the clinic sections are organized to be capable of dealing with 90 percent of such cases and the rest are transferred to specialized hospitals. During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the doctors accompanying athlete delegations are fully responsible for their health. It is up to them to decide whether a sick athlete will be treated in the clinic. In most cases, the delegation doctors are able to give treatment on their own.

During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, there are 24 designated hospitals and the Beijing Emergency Medical Rescue Center is designated for emergency service. 68 Olympic competition and 9 non-competition venues and training facilities have been equipped with 168 first-aid stations. However, these medical facilities are only responsible for 10 percent of the cases.

Advanced equipment

The Village is equipped with highly advanced NMR equipment, which do not appear even in some large hospitals. They are so called "green NMR," as their cost of operations is cut by 40%.

NMR spectroscopy, non-destructive and non-radioactive, is suitable for every part of the human body, especially for soft organs like the brain, backbone and joints, and as one of the best image diagnosis methods, it provides super-clear fine images for early diagnosis. NMR can be applied to all sport events, help clinical doctors detect potential damages early and monitor treatment and recovery. Moreover it can help detect hidden fatal diseases like heart defects to eliminate tragedies in football, marathon and swimming events. Of course, all NMR checks are subject approval by delegation doctors.

Other sophisticated machines include 5 ultrasonic sets, 1 dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanner and several electrocardiographs. The heart ultrasonic instrument can check the heart condition of athletes before competitions in football, marathon and swimming events. The notebook-sized ultrasonic equipment is convenient to carry around to the patient's side.

Process of medical treatment

On the left side of the hall, nurses at the reception desk help "Villagers" with necessary information and take them to where they are being treated. In the waiting area, 13 movable beds are ready for emergencies or for those who have to receive longer clinical treatment.

The process is simple enough. After showing a "Villager" pass and getting registered, an athlete can go to see the doctors immediately. There is no registration office or cashier because the Beijing Olympics Games offers free medical treatment. The clinic is open 24 hours a day from the first day when the Village opens till the close of the Paralympic Games.

The clinic is staffed with 543 specially trained doctors selected from first-class hospitals in Beijing. It also provides some traditional Chinese medical treatment like acupuncture. To ensure quality of medical treatment, the equipment and medicines are all installed and delivered by BOCOG.

Doping control

The third floor houses the doping control facilities. Getting off the elevator, what meets the eye seems like a doping control educational program -- pictures on walls explaining essential information and giving warnings about various stimulants, as well as providing introductions to the testing process.

The Beijing Olympic Games has a special authorized doping control center. The IOC organizes numerous tests before and during the competitions, usually by random selection testing. The doping control section above the clinic is only a work station, responsible for collection, sealing, storage and transportation of urine samples. At first notice and without any delay, athletes must go through doping tests if asked; any delay, excuse or refusal without sufficient cause will bring forth punishment.

It is the largest restricted space in the Village. Only employees and athletes under testing have access to the area.