Thirteen city-level hospitals purchased 38 large medical appliances from leading international companies during the 5th China International Import Expo on Tuesday.

The machines include equipment like the latest CT (Computed Tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) devices as well as surgical robots, totaling 570 million yuan (US$78.51 million), according to the Shanghai Shenkang Hospital Development Center.

Shanghai started increasing investment in big medical appliance purchases since 2005. Shenkang began taking charge of all bidding and purchasing of such equipment for city-level public hospitals from 2011.

So far, local leading public hospitals have 623 large appliances, with a total worth of approximately 7 billion yuan.

During the previous four CIIE events, Shenkang purchased 129 devices at the cost of 1.7 billion yuan.

These high-end medical devices have greatly streamlined the process of diagnosis and treatment, improved clinical capability and scientific research ability, and enhanced pandemic prevention and control in local hospitals, Shenkang said.

Since 2019, the number of complicated cases in city-level public hospitals has risen by one fourth, while the number of complicated surgery increased over 36 percent. Minimally-invasive surgery also increased by 58 percent, benefiting patients and enhancing the abilities of local hospitals.