China's long-awaited reform plan for its failing healthcare
system will be released in March shortly after the top
legislature's annual session, said Health Minister Chen Zhu.
The plan has almost been completed and the ministry is still
soliciting opinions from experts and other departments, Chen was
quoted by Friday's Modern Express, based in east China's Jiangsu
Province, as saying.
The plan covers four aspects of the medical system: public
health care, medical treatment, medical insurance and supply of
medicines, he said at a meeting held on Thursday in Jiangsu.
Soaring medical costs in recent years have plunged many rural
and urban Chinese back into poverty as a result of the government's
failure to implement an adequate medical insurance network after it
cut subsidies for medical costs in 1992.
China plans to reform the present system so that common people
can enjoy universal basic services at reasonable prices, according
to a government report to the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature last December.
The scheme features basic concepts including adhering to the
orientation of serving the people, ensuring the "non-profit" nature
of public medical institutions, cutting hospitals' involvement in
drug sales, increasing governmental responsibility and input, and
establishing a basic medicare network for the whole population.
The ministry announced earlier this month that the reform will
be piloted this year "in selected regions".
Several provinces including Jiangsu have applied to take part in
the trial, Chen said.
The minister, also a renowned molecular biologist, called on
doctors to improve their professional ethics. "Doctors shall not
act as puppets of big pharmaceutical companies," he said.
According to a recent survey by the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) on "unsafe" factors upsetting the public, rising
medical costs have become the top concern among Chinese people. The
high costs usually result from expensive medicines.
Countless media reports have told of doctors intentionally
prescribing costly drugs in return for kickbacks from
pharmaceutical firms.
(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2008)