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China needs more GPs, suggests summit
By Cai Wenjun |
July 13, 2010, Tuesday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
THE government should introduce incentives to encourage medical students to serve at community hospitals and cultivate more general physicians working in the grassroots as part of health care reform, experts suggested today.
Health officials and industry insiders from home and abroad discussed challenges to China's health reform and experiences of developed countries at today's China Healthcare and Life Sciences Summit launched by the Financial Times and the UK Pavilion.
Experts said China should change the present specialist-centered health system and turn more focus on general physician cultivation and use and develop a better patient transfer system between different levels of hospitals.
"Since it needs a long time to promote GP training in China, it may be useful to transfer some specialists in district-level hospitals to be GPs at community hospitals," said Sarah Barber, team leader of health policy and systems at World Health Organization's China office.
Chen Zhu, China's Health Minister, expressed a similar opinion at an education forum in Shanghai over the weekend.
He said the future major battlefield for China's health care is the community, since community hospitals will shoulder the main responsibility on chronic disease prevention and control.
"The government should design better policies attracting medical graduates working in the community," he said. "About 70 percent of students from Harvard Medical School serve at community hospitals, while most medical students in China prefer big hospitals with better professional opportunity and higher income."
Officials from China Nonprescription Medicines Association said health care reform should pay more attention on disease prevention and public education.
"About half of the medical expenses is used in the year before patients die and one-third of the expense is used on critical patients in his or her last few days," said Wang Wei, the association's secreatary general. "It is such a huge waste of medical resources."
Health officials and industry insiders from home and abroad discussed challenges to China's health reform and experiences of developed countries at today's China Healthcare and Life Sciences Summit launched by the Financial Times and the UK Pavilion.
Experts said China should change the present specialist-centered health system and turn more focus on general physician cultivation and use and develop a better patient transfer system between different levels of hospitals.
"Since it needs a long time to promote GP training in China, it may be useful to transfer some specialists in district-level hospitals to be GPs at community hospitals," said Sarah Barber, team leader of health policy and systems at World Health Organization's China office.
Chen Zhu, China's Health Minister, expressed a similar opinion at an education forum in Shanghai over the weekend.
He said the future major battlefield for China's health care is the community, since community hospitals will shoulder the main responsibility on chronic disease prevention and control.
"The government should design better policies attracting medical graduates working in the community," he said. "About 70 percent of students from Harvard Medical School serve at community hospitals, while most medical students in China prefer big hospitals with better professional opportunity and higher income."
Officials from China Nonprescription Medicines Association said health care reform should pay more attention on disease prevention and public education.
"About half of the medical expenses is used in the year before patients die and one-third of the expense is used on critical patients in his or her last few days," said Wang Wei, the association's secreatary general. "It is such a huge waste of medical resources."
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