Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao on Sunday pledged to spend at least 20 billion yuan
(US$2.4 billion) in improving township health service in the next
five years.
To give the people an easier and cheaper access to medical
service, China needs to step up building rural health service
system and improve the service networks covering county, township
and village levels, said Wen while delivering a government work
report at the opening meeting of the Fourth Session of the Tenth
National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature.
China has more than 900 million rural population. Rural health
is the weakest and most unbalanced part in the country's health
development, Health Minister Gao Qiang said late last month.
"The move shows the strong commitment and resolution of the
central government in improving the lagging-behind rural health
service system in the approach to build socialist new countryside,
"said Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, in an
interview with Xinhua.
Township health centers are a connecting link between county
hospitals and village clinics in the overall rural health service
system, said Mao.
The central government has been raising financial support to
this part over the past few years.
In 2004, 3.7 billion yuan was allocated by the central
government as subsidy to local health development, among with 88
percent was spent on rural people's health. Last year, 3.8 billion
yuan from central finance and 3.052 bullion yuan from the National
Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Health were
given to rural health organs, including 2.3 billion yuan spent on
township health centers.
According to premier's report, from 2006 to 2010, the central
government will spend more than 20 billion yuan in renovating
houses and upgrading equipment in township health centers and some
of county hospitals.
Along with rising fund from the central finance, local
governments have been increasing support to township health
centers. In Central China's Hunan Province, provincial fund for
building township health centers rose from 4 million yuan in 2002
to 35 million yuan in 2005.
In East China's Shandong Province, a total of 25 million yuan
was spent on 30 township health centers in underdeveloped counties
last year.
To date, every township health center in Henan Province has
become the first choice of farmers in seeking medical service. They
do not have to go to hospitals above the county level if they have
no serious diseases, said Zhang Zhimin, head of the grassroots
health and women and children care division under the Henan
Provincial Health Department.
In Henan, renovation of all township health centers will
complete by this year. The support priorities in the next five
years will be given to county hospitals and village clinics so as
to improve the overall rural medical service system, and train more
grassroots health workers, Zhang told Xinhua.
Premier's government report also proposed that in next five
years, urban doctors will take turns to work in the countryside to
help training medical staffs and treat rural patients.
Actually, China has begun sending urban doctors to countryside
since the early of 2005, said Mao, giving the name of the project
as "10,000 doctors to support rural health".
So far, the project has dispatched about 4,000 urban qualified
doctors to 600 underdeveloped counties, he said.
Bao Weisu, head of Longyang Township Health Center, Tongwei
County of Northwest China's Gansu Province, said, "With the support
by colleagues from cities, our treatment skills have improved a lot
and farmers have enjoyed good, cheap and convenient service."
"We really hope they can stay for another two years so that the
farmers' difficulty in getting good and cheap service can be
overcome," Bao told Xinhua.
According to Mao, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of
Finance have announced that this year, the central finance will
allocate 69 million yuan in supporting provincial-level medical
service institutes to assist township health centers. The targeted
counties will be expanded to 375 in 11 provinces in west China
regions.
The project will no doubt be continued as a long-term plan to
re-allocate unbalanced medical resources between urban and rural
regions, said Mao.
Large urban hospitals will be encouraged to take regular
assistance to countryside as an obligation, so that the medical
service can be improved and reliable while fixed medical teams can
be established in the rural areas, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2006)