China's health minister bemoans failing system
Source: Reuters
By Ben Blanchard BEIJING, March 18 (Reuters) - China's health care system has fallen behind in the country's breakneck economic growth and the nation faces a major challenge to look after its 1.3 billion people, the health minister said on Sunday. Gao Qiang, speaking at a forum carried live on state television, said it would be many years before China could put in place free health care for all, adding government spending was still far from enough. "China's health industry faces a severe challenge. It has had enormous successes, but we clearly recognise its development has seriously fallen behind that of the economy and other sectors of society," Gao said. "People have reacted strongly to the problem of it being difficult and expensive to get medical care," he told the forum, organised by a think-tank under the State Council, or Cabinet. The growing rich-poor, rural-urban divide is much in evidence in China's medical services, and was featured strongly in Premier Wen Jiabao's annual work report to parliament earlier this month. Under Chairman Mao Zedong, many Chinese farmers received rudimentary medical care from "barefoot" doctors who staffed clinics run by all-powerful communes by the 1970s. But when the pioneer reformer Deng Xiaoping broke up the communes in the early 1980s, he also broke up the medical cooperatives. Since then rural medical care has stagnated. Many hospitals have resorted to charging exorbitant premiums for medical care and prescriptions. Deregulation of China's healthcare industry has brought a rash of scandals involving overcharging, bogus drugs and malpractice. Gao said the rural-urban gap was hard to avoid, but added: "If it is is too large and not solved over the long term, it will certainly affect social stability and harmony as well as the economy's sustainable development". "Medical facilities are mainly concentrated in urban areas," he said. "Government investment is far from enough." And this was hampering the fight against bird flu, which has killed 14 people in China since 2003. "Despite local governments having set up disease prevention and control centres, standards of some medical staff are not high enough," Gao said. "Facilities at the grassroot level are rather poor, and they lack necessary financial support. "Bird flu usually occurs in the countryside. If there is no complete disease control system in the countryside, this presents a grave threat to the prevention and control of bird flu." But he ruled out as impractical universal, free health care for China. "This needs a huge amount of government spending," Gao said. "And without effect control on medical resources, there will be a lot of waste." Still, Gao said he was concerned about profiteering by doctors, hospitals and medical companies. Last year, the government sacked seven hospital officials and disciplined two others after a 75-year-old man's family and his insurer were charged $686,000 to treat his cancer in a case which attracted nationwide media attention. The man later died. "Medical care should not be aimed at making profit or making money," Gao said. (Additional reporting by Li Jiansheng)
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