An alliance for pediatric rescue and transfer in Guangdong province and the neighboring special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao was launched on Friday in the provincial capital, Guangzhou.

The first group in the alliance includes 38 hospitals in the mainland and Hong Kong Children's Hospital. The endeavor was initiated by Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center and Hong Kong Children's Hospital.

The alliance is meant to consolidate resources and optimize their distribution, said Zhou Wenhao, president of Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center.

It is also aimed at building a pediatric rescue and transfer network, which involves air, sea and land transport in the region and is operated in a standardized way, he said.

The cooperation will be facilitated in fields including the transfer of child patients in severe conditions, emergency rescues, organ transfer and emergency medical resources transport.

Related regulations will be formulated and a platform for managing the alliance will be built, with more hospitals anticipated to join.

Cross-hospital child-patient transfer at Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center was started in 1998. Last year, the center saw 2,629 such cases.

Such transfers have involved medical institutions in eight provinces, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Macao.

Since 2021, 14 transfers at the center involved ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) support, Zhou said.