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Woman's desperate act a good lesson for health care reformers
By Ni Tao |
May 26, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IN a desperate act, Wu Yuanbi cut herself open to relieve the pain that had tormented her for years.
The woman living in Chongqing Municipality became a national sensation after she slashed her belly open with a kitchen knife on May 9 to let out the fluid in her abdomen.
Wu's almost suicidal move illustrates the agonizing distress rural Chinese often find themselves in when they are presented unaffordable medical bills.
A major disease can plunge them into financial distress.
In Wu's case, she has been suffering from Budd-Chiari syndrome, a chronic disease that can lead to an enlarged liver and to accumulation of fluid in abdomen. There is no known permanent cure.
The 53-year-old migrant worker had surgery - paid with the life savings of her family and donations from neighbors - in 2002 that removed 25 kilograms of fluid from her belly. But soon there was a relapse.
In hope of reducing the pain, and "sparing the family trouble," as she admitted later, Wu raised the knife and inflicted a 10-centimeter gash on her stomach.
She was in a critical condition when family members found her lying amid a mess of yellow fluid and spilled-out intestines. They rushed her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a severe chest and abdomen infection.
Then all of a sudden her fortunes took a turn for the better. The municipal government stepped in, ordering the hospital to do whatever it takes to save Wu's life.
Belated help
This generosity was in short supply when the woman and her impoverished family sought medical help from local authorities, only to have the door slammed in their faces. They were told the government only steps in to help needy people with certain ailments. Budd-Chiari syndrome is not among the ailments covered.
Instead, health officials suggested Wu get insurance through the public health care scheme catering to the rural population, known as the new rural cooperative health plan.
Under the scheme peasants who pay a yearly premium of less than 100 yuan (US$14.6) will have better access to medical service, a luxury they could only dream of in the past. The government will cover about 90 percent of their medical costs, with the rest picked up by patients themselves.
Wu didn't bother producing the paperwork to be entitled to that privilege, a misinformed decision some say caused her to languish in agony while medical recourse was actually available.
She is among the unlucky few who are not sheltered by the rural health care initiative, which in some regions has reached a coverage rate of nearly 100 percent.
Soaring costs
To their credit, China's health care reformers have done a good job in recent years in improving the previously porous health care safety net. But the experience of people like Wu shows just how much work needs to be done to broaden the base of what has become a pet project for some.
True, Wu is partly to blame for her situation, but she might also have been turned away by the appalling state of affairs in many health institutions.
In some areas, the vaunted rural Medicaid program hasn't made peasants better off but has provided a new disguise for massive rip-offs.
Ruthless market reforms of the health sector have given an incentive for hospitals to be run as a business.
Unethical doctors shilling for pharmaceutical firms prescribe pricy medicines that patients don't need, amounting occasionally to whopping medical bills.
The overuse of medicine, especially antibiotics, has come under fierce scrutiny since a woman died from gallstones in a Guangdong hospital in early April. She received 330 liters of intravenous injection - enough for 10 baths - at a cost of 450,000 yuan.
While higher medical costs threaten to bankrupt governments worldwide, they are mostly a source of personal financial blues in China.
The self-performed surgery of a despondent farmer provides a timely lesson to complacent health care reformers: We are not getting there if individual patients are still dying for want of medicine.
The woman living in Chongqing Municipality became a national sensation after she slashed her belly open with a kitchen knife on May 9 to let out the fluid in her abdomen.
Wu's almost suicidal move illustrates the agonizing distress rural Chinese often find themselves in when they are presented unaffordable medical bills.
A major disease can plunge them into financial distress.
In Wu's case, she has been suffering from Budd-Chiari syndrome, a chronic disease that can lead to an enlarged liver and to accumulation of fluid in abdomen. There is no known permanent cure.
The 53-year-old migrant worker had surgery - paid with the life savings of her family and donations from neighbors - in 2002 that removed 25 kilograms of fluid from her belly. But soon there was a relapse.
In hope of reducing the pain, and "sparing the family trouble," as she admitted later, Wu raised the knife and inflicted a 10-centimeter gash on her stomach.
She was in a critical condition when family members found her lying amid a mess of yellow fluid and spilled-out intestines. They rushed her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a severe chest and abdomen infection.
Then all of a sudden her fortunes took a turn for the better. The municipal government stepped in, ordering the hospital to do whatever it takes to save Wu's life.
Belated help
This generosity was in short supply when the woman and her impoverished family sought medical help from local authorities, only to have the door slammed in their faces. They were told the government only steps in to help needy people with certain ailments. Budd-Chiari syndrome is not among the ailments covered.
Instead, health officials suggested Wu get insurance through the public health care scheme catering to the rural population, known as the new rural cooperative health plan.
Under the scheme peasants who pay a yearly premium of less than 100 yuan (US$14.6) will have better access to medical service, a luxury they could only dream of in the past. The government will cover about 90 percent of their medical costs, with the rest picked up by patients themselves.
Wu didn't bother producing the paperwork to be entitled to that privilege, a misinformed decision some say caused her to languish in agony while medical recourse was actually available.
She is among the unlucky few who are not sheltered by the rural health care initiative, which in some regions has reached a coverage rate of nearly 100 percent.
Soaring costs
To their credit, China's health care reformers have done a good job in recent years in improving the previously porous health care safety net. But the experience of people like Wu shows just how much work needs to be done to broaden the base of what has become a pet project for some.
True, Wu is partly to blame for her situation, but she might also have been turned away by the appalling state of affairs in many health institutions.
In some areas, the vaunted rural Medicaid program hasn't made peasants better off but has provided a new disguise for massive rip-offs.
Ruthless market reforms of the health sector have given an incentive for hospitals to be run as a business.
Unethical doctors shilling for pharmaceutical firms prescribe pricy medicines that patients don't need, amounting occasionally to whopping medical bills.
The overuse of medicine, especially antibiotics, has come under fierce scrutiny since a woman died from gallstones in a Guangdong hospital in early April. She received 330 liters of intravenous injection - enough for 10 baths - at a cost of 450,000 yuan.
While higher medical costs threaten to bankrupt governments worldwide, they are mostly a source of personal financial blues in China.
The self-performed surgery of a despondent farmer provides a timely lesson to complacent health care reformers: We are not getting there if individual patients are still dying for want of medicine.
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