The provincial government wanted to expand the program so that it could include 50 counties in 2009, 77 in 2010, and 104 counties and districts in 2012, with an accumulating investment of 531 million yuan.

China initiated a project to cut the death rate of expectant women and the tetanus rate of newborns in 2000 in 12 provinces in central and western parts of the country.

With the project proceeding, government branches have added more medical equipment in the countryside, improved medical services, trained doctors, publicized information and partially aided mothers giving birth.

The program of making giving birth free in poverty-stricken counties in Shaanxi is a new evolution in the project.

According to a central government plan, programs of aiding rural, expectant women to give birth in hospital will be expanded to all counties in central and west China from 1,200 counties in 2007.

The expansion needs financing. Money is now available after an executive meeting of the State Council, or the cabinet, announced on November 9 that China will take 10 major steps to stimulate domestic consumption and growth - the economic stimulus package.

Programs in the 10 major areas, including beefing up the health and medical service by improving the grass-roots medical system, will be financed by a stimulus package estimated at four trillion yuan over the next two years. This package included money already allocated and schemes already begun when the package was announced.

"The package is working for the economy and is conducive to the improvement of ordinary people's livelihoods and social harmony," Sun said.

In neighboring Gansu Province, a program of free birth was launched in 2007, said Zhang Cunlian, director of Division of Women, Children, and Community Healthcare, Department of Health of the province.

In the program, rural women in 55 poverty-stricken counties are fully exempted from hospital charges.

In Gansu, a long and narrow shaped province, transportation in remote mountain areas was a big headache for expectant women, said Zhang.

"We are expecting more automobiles in our service," she said. "Even a motorcycle would be a big help to carry an expectant women from the mountain areas to a hospital."

The program was expanded to 64 counties in 2008 and the costs are covered by the central and provincial finance, she adds.

"We are about to expand the program to more expectant, rural women in our province with more financial resources," she added.

(Xinhua News Agency December 3, 2008)