From November 9 to 16, a training course for health bureau
directors was held in Beijing. Minister of Health Gao Qiang gave a speech at the event and
highlighted that more reforms would be implemented for the
country's medical system in order to break the monopoly of public
health care institutions.
His speech was published on the Ministry of Health (MOH) website
on November 28.
In his speech, Gao highlighted two things that would help
reform. One is that the monopoly of public hospitals must be
broken. Public hospitals currently provide most of the medical
services. According to the statistics from 2003, public hospitals
accounted for 96 percent of all the hospitals in the country, and
private hospitals only 4 percent.
The other issue is that management styles have to change.
Hospitals are categorized according to their ownership structure.
Public hospitals are considered non-profit, while private hospitals
are considered for-profit. But the reality is that most public
hospitals conduct their business for profit, yet they enjoy
exemptions and government allowances that private hospitals are
denied. The policy effectively means that public hospitals are more
loosely supervised, and the private ones aren't given the room to
develop.?
"
The number of public hospitals in a locality depends on the
development of the local economy, availability of government funds
and demand," Gao said, adding: "There are now too many public
hospitals for the government to support."
In Gao's opinion, the problem of funding can be solved by
encouraging more private funding of hospitals. "We could change the
ownership structure of some public hospitals by allowing private
enterprises or individuals to buy and manage them," Gao said.
Gao added: "The government should centralize its funds and take
charge of some of the public hospitals, and it can focus on
creating high quality, low priced medical services. The hospitals
managed by the government should stick to the low prices and
non-profit principle, and staff salaries will be controlled by the
state."
On Tuesday, a source close to the MOH told the beijingnews.com
that a new medical reform scheme has been submitted to the State
Council for approval. According to the source, the scheme proposes
using four medium-sized cities as test cases. The aim of the
supposed scheme is to cover 90 percent of the population in these
four cities with basic medical insurance, meaning they need only
pay half of their medical expenses.
According to the press office of the MOH, the scheme has yet to
be approved by the State Council. Moreover, the four-city test-case
scenario cannot be confirmed.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua, November 30, 2005)