Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao delivered a government report to the first session of the 11th National People's Congress on March 5. Parts of his speech is dedicated to the healthcare development and reform.
"Pushing forward the reform and development of healthcare work. Four aspects must be prioritized:
Firstly, development of the medical security system covering urban and rural residents will be expedited (this year). Coverage of the urban employee basic medical insurance program will be expanded; experiment of the urban resident basic medical insurance program will be expanded to over 50% of cities nationwide; the new rural cooperative medical care system will be implemented in all rural areas nationwide, and, within two years, the funding standard per person under the system will be raised to CNY 100 from currently CNY 50, among which the central and local government subsidy per person will be raised to CNY 80 from currently CNY 40. Medical assistance programs in urban and rural areas will be advanced.
Secondly, public health service infrastructure will be refined. Prevention of major diseases will be strengthened, the scope of the national infectious disease immunization plan will be expanded and free therapeutic programs for patients of AIDS, tuberculosis and bilharziasis will be extended. Prevention of endemic, occupational and mental health diseases will be strengthened. Mother and child healthcare work should be advanced. Assistance policies for maternal delivery will be introduced in rural areas of western and central China. The mechanism of public health service funding security will be improved.
Thirdly, the development of the urban and rural medical service infrastructures will be advanced, with emphasis on improving the three level healthcare service networks in rural areas and the community healthcare service system in urban areas. Training of general physicians and nurses as well as rural doctors will be strengthened, and high level talents are encouraged to provide services at grass root levels. Experiments on the reform of public hospitals will be initiated. Policies and measures fostering the development of traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine will be introduced.
Fourthly, the national essential drug system and the drug supply security system will be established to ensure supply of essential drugs and drug safety, and prevent drug price hikes in rural areas. The central government will budget CNY 82.3 billion, an addition of CNY 16.5 billion from 2007, to support the reform and development in the healthcare sector. The support will be inclined to rural and grass root level healthcare."
Wen also said that the State Council has been researching on deepening reform of the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector, and has formulated an initial plan which will be published to seek public comments.
He underscored that the essential goals of the healthcare reform are: "preserving the welfare nature of public health and medical care, establishing a basic healthcare system to provide people with safe, effective, convenient and low cost basic medical and health services. This reform will be firmly pushed forward and upheld, so that all people will enjoy basic medical and health services."
Although Wen still did not offered a clear picture of the healthcare reform path ahead, he did send clear signals on government plans in a number of areas:
1. China will continue to expand coverage of its basic medical insurance programs and rural cooperative medical care;
2. The government will step up prevention efforts in healthcare including expanding immunization and free therapy programs;
3. The government will begin reforming the healthcare infrastructure by promoting the importance of community healthcare facilities and grass-root rural medical facilities as front line medical treatment services, and state investments will be tilted towards these sectors.
4. The development of national essential drug system and national drug supply security system is one area with few disputes and uncertainties, and thus it may have been pushed to the forefront of the healthcare reform agenda.
Additionally, Wen signaled that the long-overdue reform of public hospitals will finally begin. It is likely experiments in this area will be initiated this year.
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