X-7 Question: Farmers with daily income less than US$1 are the social vulnerable group in China. In recent years, many farmers fell into poverty because of illness. What measures will the Chinese Government take to meet farmers' basic medical requirement?
A: Owing to the lack of medical institutions in China's rural areas, the mass of farmers are facing the serious problem of becoming impoverished because of illness. However, the situation is expected to be changed fundamentally in 2010 because during the process of constructing New Countryside, Chinese Government has scheduled to resolve the problems of improving medical situation in rural areas, which will reduce farmers' medical expenditures and enhancing farmers' health.
Chinese Government launched and promoted new type of rural cooperative medical system in 2003 and the program is undergoing steadily. By the end of September 2006, an average of 50.07 percent of China's counties (cities and districts) conducted pilot program in this regard, covering 406 million farmers, accounting for 80.49 percent of qualified farmers. In 2007, the program will be extended to 80 percent of China's counties (cities and districts), until it covers all the rural areas in China in 2010. At that time, it will benefit 700 million people.
Meanwhile, to those impoverished farmers who are suffering from sever diseases and whose lives are greatly burdened by medical expenditures, the government will supply appropriate subsidies. Rural medical relief system has been established in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions nationwide. This program helped 11.12 million patients in rural areas in 2005 with total expenditure of 1.08 billion yuan.
In order to further meet farmers' basic medical requirements, China will perfect its three-level health service network of giving priority to county-level hospitals, focusing on town-level medical institutions and basing on village clinics. On the basis of integrating the existing sanitation resources, China will rationally adjust the allocation of town-level hospitals. In principle, one town can have one government-constructed commune hospital, and redundant town-level commune hospitals can be adjusted through cooperative operation and system reformation. According to schedules, China will invest more than 20 billion yuan to upgrade buildings and equipments of county-level and town-level hospitals in 2006-10, to improve health conditions in rural areas, so as to supply better services for farmers. Meanwhile, Chinese Government will earmark special funds to intensify the control to the prevention of severe diseases like AIDS, schistosomiasis, tuberculosis and endemics, and supply universal trainings to health workers of town and village levels to improve their skills. The government will also organize more than 10,000 high-quality doctors in urban areas to work in rural areas all year round. These measures will not only accelerate health service development in China's rural areas, but also help more than 800 million Chinese farmers to get basic medical treatment, so that every farmer can enjoy primary healthcare services.
(China.org.cn)