China plans national health service

Thousands of new hospitals and clinics will be built in the next three years, in the first steps in a decade-long reform plan to introduce basic universal healthcare throughout the country. Maternal health, mental health, disease prevention and first aid services are also in line for greater attention.
The Government said that it would invest 850 billion Yuan (£85 billion) between 2009 and 2011 to bring universal healthcare to 90 per cent of China’s 1.3 billion people. The aim is to offer access to this national health service to everyone.

It comes amid rising anger about the state of China's underfunded and difficult to access medical services. People were horrified by one tale, from a 2005 report, of a three-year-old boy scalded by boiling water in an accident at home. He died of his injuries after his parents were turned away from one hospital because they could not afford the £1,500 deposit demanded by doctors. Hospitals and clinics in the poor countryside and less developed cities will be improved and the price of essential medicines will be capped. Limiting the cost of medicines could make a huge difference to patients - a serious illness can wipe out a family's life savings."By 2011, we will remarkably improve the accessibility of basic medical care and health care services and alleviate the burden of the general public for medical costs," Vice Health Minister Zhang Mao said at a briefing for reporters yesterday.

The plan seems to be to reinvent a system in which only the rich, city residents or people who work for government organisations can get affordable medical services. The 700 million or so Chinese farmers often choose to stay at home to die rather than bankrupt their families with huge hospital bills. Without a social safety net, like the one in the UK, Chinese workers save a huge proportion of their income in case of sickness. That has made it difficult for the Government to encourage more consumer spending to help to revive the economy.

The state-run newspaper China Daily said: “The Government’s good intention could be just wishful thinking if no specific measures were taken to break the nexus between representatives of medicine manufacturers and doctors or between hospitals and manufacturers. It is an open secret that some doctors get kickbacks from drug manufacturers for prescribing their drugs.”

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children