A Sino-British program to provide medical services for China's
urban poor is revolutionizing healthcare in Shenyang, capital of
northeast China's Liaoning Province.
The China-United Kingdom Urban Health and Poverty Project
(UHPP), launched in the Heping and Tiexi districts in 2001, has
helped build a community-based medical services system in the two
districts, said Jin Shengguo of China's Ministry of Health
community services department.
The project had also given rise to cooperation between
government departments in providing medical services for the needy
and creating a new training method for general practitioners, said
Jin.
It has played a key role in providing community-level healthcare
to the poor in Heping and Tiexi, which has a total population of
1.4 million.
The UHPP has achieved remarkable success and had a wider impact
in China, said Mark George, first secretary of the British
Department for International Development.
It would vigorously help the development of community health
services and a medical financial assistance policy and set a good
example for China's community health services and medical financial
service development, said George.
The country still faced challenges in healthcare partly due to a
lack of services for many people, especially the needy.
The government has tried to provide more accessible and fairly
distributed healthcare by developing community health services.
The Chinese and British governments began the UHPP project in
Shenyang and Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province in 2001. The cities of Xining
and Yinchuan were included in the program later.
A review of the Shenyang program has been concluded and reviews
will be carried out in Chengdu, Xining and Yinchuan later this
year.
The results would help the central authorities in drafting
policies on medical assistance for people in sheer poverty, George
said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2006)