A senior government official from Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, has required hospitals and medical institutions in the city to open special hotlines and green channels for pregnant and puerperal women, critically ill patients and those who require hemodialysis, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. 

"Hospitals should provide medical services to these patients while sparing no efforts to fight the coronavirus," Xu Mingfei, deputy mayor of Xi'an, said at a news conference in the northwestern metropolis on Wednesday. 

"No hospitals or medical institutions are allowed to refuse these patients in the name of curbing the spread," he said.

Special ambulances should be arranged to pick up patients from quarantine areas, communities and housing estates that have been sealed off for stricter management and send them home after seeing doctors if needed, he said.

But ordinary residents still need to show negative results of a nucleic acid test taken in 48 hours when they want to see doctors in hospitals to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, he added.