As she slept in her grandmother's arms after coming off a drip in a Beijing hospital, Wenwen's mother was desperately praying her 1-year-old daughter did not need to be hospitalized again.

Zheng, who declined to give her full name, had already been charged 100 yuan ($14) for the drip to help treat her little girl's diarrhea and was anxiously awaiting the results of blood tests.

Zheng and her husband had already borne the brunt of one batch of medical bills this year, after Wenwen contracted bronchitis in the spring and spent 11 days on the wards at No 1 Hospital of Peking University.