Just before midnight, the sidewalk outside the glowing towers of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University is littered with slumbering bodies. Splayed on colorful mats or folding cots, these are patients' relatives.
Inside, beds line hallways and crowd elevator lobbies, while relatives share gurneys with patients and doze in brightly lit stairwells.
The world's biggest hospital, with about 7,000 beds, Zhengzhou First Affiliated is still not big enough.