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Barefoot docs and naked truth of health care
By Ni Tao |
March 15, 2010, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FOR many Chinese, in particular those living in rural areas, the difficulty of paying for expensive health care when they fall ill is an ugly reality.
It's no secret that China has serious imbalance of allocated medical resources between its rich and poor, cities and the countryside.
Most rural residents are left either unsheltered or only partially sheltered under a porous health care umbrella.
But not in our wildest imagination could we grasp the true extent of this disparity until China's health minister gave a glimpse into this disproportion.
"Eighty percent of China's quality medical resources flow to the urban areas when a majority of our populace still dwells in the countryside," Health Minister Chen Zhu told a press conference in Beijing on March 8, on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's legislature.
In case you are wondering, how has the remainder trickled down to ordinary rural households? Statistics recently released by the Ministry of Health give clues.
In 2009, China's central and local governments covered 74 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) of a national health care fund reserved for rural folks, with the remaining 19.4 billion yuan collected from farmers.
The money is spread too thin - averaging less than 100 yuan a year per person - when we divide 74 billion by 759 million, the number of people that signed up for the fund.
Moreover, the 74 billion-yuan government subsidy accounted for less than 1 percent of China's entire fiscal expenditure last year.
Aware of the urban-rural divide, the government has been investing more in rural health care in the past few years.
"The Chinese government has decided to move more medical resources to the country's west. This will start a new era and bring about real changes," Romano Prodi, ex-prime minister of Italy and a professor at China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS), said at a press conference in Shanghai on March 9.
Family doctors
"In Italy, we have family doctors paid for by the state, but doctors are chosen by families," Prodi said, adding that freedom of choice is an important part of health care reform.
The "family doctors" mentioned by Prodi may be a distant dream for many Chinese, who are still grappling with a shortage of doctors. But it evokes memories of "barefoot doctors."
During the 1970s, millions of so-called "barefoot doctors" worked in the countryside to give cheap treatment to farmers. There are few "barefoot doctors" today.
Chinese farmers' interests have fallen through the cracks today as a sizable portion of health care funds have gravitated toward the cities.
As American philosopher John Rawls famously wrote in his "A Theory of Justice" that social and economic inequalities are only acceptable in that they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.
China should draw from the positive experiences of its own past and certain Western countries in its formulation of a fairer health care system that covers the least advantaged members of society.
It's no secret that China has serious imbalance of allocated medical resources between its rich and poor, cities and the countryside.
Most rural residents are left either unsheltered or only partially sheltered under a porous health care umbrella.
But not in our wildest imagination could we grasp the true extent of this disparity until China's health minister gave a glimpse into this disproportion.
"Eighty percent of China's quality medical resources flow to the urban areas when a majority of our populace still dwells in the countryside," Health Minister Chen Zhu told a press conference in Beijing on March 8, on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's legislature.
In case you are wondering, how has the remainder trickled down to ordinary rural households? Statistics recently released by the Ministry of Health give clues.
In 2009, China's central and local governments covered 74 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) of a national health care fund reserved for rural folks, with the remaining 19.4 billion yuan collected from farmers.
The money is spread too thin - averaging less than 100 yuan a year per person - when we divide 74 billion by 759 million, the number of people that signed up for the fund.
Moreover, the 74 billion-yuan government subsidy accounted for less than 1 percent of China's entire fiscal expenditure last year.
Aware of the urban-rural divide, the government has been investing more in rural health care in the past few years.
"The Chinese government has decided to move more medical resources to the country's west. This will start a new era and bring about real changes," Romano Prodi, ex-prime minister of Italy and a professor at China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS), said at a press conference in Shanghai on March 9.
Family doctors
"In Italy, we have family doctors paid for by the state, but doctors are chosen by families," Prodi said, adding that freedom of choice is an important part of health care reform.
The "family doctors" mentioned by Prodi may be a distant dream for many Chinese, who are still grappling with a shortage of doctors. But it evokes memories of "barefoot doctors."
During the 1970s, millions of so-called "barefoot doctors" worked in the countryside to give cheap treatment to farmers. There are few "barefoot doctors" today.
Chinese farmers' interests have fallen through the cracks today as a sizable portion of health care funds have gravitated toward the cities.
As American philosopher John Rawls famously wrote in his "A Theory of Justice" that social and economic inequalities are only acceptable in that they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.
China should draw from the positive experiences of its own past and certain Western countries in its formulation of a fairer health care system that covers the least advantaged members of society.
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