A wave of healthcare
reform is sweeping through China and
a taskforce was set up in 2005
for this purpose. This Rural Co-operative
Medical Care System (NRCMCS) aims to
healthcare affordable for its people, even
among the rural poor. NRCMCS has boldly
overhauled the costing structure and the
resultant medical cost was established at 50 yuan (US$7) per person. The central
government foots 40% (20 yuan) of this
charge while another 20 yuan comes from the
provincial government, which leaves only 10
yuan attributed to individual patient. The
project was a massive success with estimated
80% of the total Chinese population in the
rural area had signed up (that is an
overwhelming 685 million residents).
It is a location-based multi-tiered
system. If the consultation happens at a
clinic or small hospital in the local town,
then the system would account for as mush as
80% of the bill. When the patient seeks
consultation at a county clinic, only up to
60% is going to be covered by the
government.
The subsidy would drop
drastically to about 30% if treatment is
sought after at a modern city hospital.
China is
also working its way to universal health
care. The preliminary draft was recently
released to solicit public opinion.
Essentially the draft spells out the need
for stable healthcare pricing as well as
greater health-care funding. It claims that
the current system is not inclusive enough
with a lot of the population being left out
or made to pay too high price on healthcare.
China of course holds the
proud record as the earliest civilization
with medicine history. Suffice to say that
this field of medicine has further undergone
remarkable development in the last two
thousand years.
However, western
medicines did not get overlooked by the
local authority even though the central
government has put a lot of emphasis in
promoting traditional Chinese medicine.
Western medicines have always been a major
alternative in the mainland healthcare with
increasing acceptance since the late 1970s.
A case in point, Western-trained physicians
and
pharmacists increased by
close to a quarter of a million from 1976 to
1981.
There are also the
so-called ‘barefoot doctors’ offering their
services at fee, alongside medicine to go.
However as rural folks progressively
achieving better incomes, these barefoot
doctors would continue to get sidelined as
more and more would opt for the commune
health centers or county hospitals. As a
result, barefoot doctors have seen their
presence diminished over time and it is on
danger of being extinct from the healthcare
landscape. Another problem lingering is that
more leaders of brigades are convinced that
farming is a better alternative to
administer local healthcare was
administered, in term of earning power and
many have quit their jobs. This has led to
the collapse of many cooperative medical
programs. There are pockets of voluntary
health-insurance programs but they may
suffer due to lack of professional
management.
The Cultural Revolution has indeed
brought about serious decline of the public
healthcare sector. But it has seen a
reversal recently as the central government
actively promote better in the diets,
especially among those in rural areas. The
change is also partly helped by the revival
of the epidemic control system.
|