Still a long way to go

Despite all the changes, people believed more efforts were needed.

Lei Pugui, a farmer in the Beiqiang Village in Pingyao City of Shanxi refused to join in the cooperative medical program, although participation rate in the city was above 95 percent.

"The program is not convenient," Lei said. "I must pay the medical bill myself first and then get reimbursement. And the rate of reimbursement is too low."

Lei's complaint was echoed by Cui Zhenzhong, a farmer from Huaiyang of Henan Province working in Beijing.

Cui said only when he was hospitalized and his medical treatment fee was above 800 yuan could he have 30 percent of the excess reimbursed.

"Medical treatment was very expensive in Beijing," said the migrant worker. "The program didn't help much."

Condition of village clinics also need improving.

A Health Ministry survey showed that by the end of 2007, there were just 863,000 medical staff in the rural areas. This meant that one doctor had to take care of more than 1,000 farmers.

Drugs were cheaper in clinics, but there were not many of them.

In Guyuan of Ningxia, there were only some 50 kinds of drugs in clinics. Even some conventional flu medicines were not available.

Xie Wanquan, 55, recalled that once he cut his feet and was rushed to a clinic, but a doctor there told him that they had no gauze. Xie was ultimately transferred to a big hospital, with his feet bleeding.

The health care problems that China was experiencing were not the result of one day, or a month, said Wang Jun, deputy director of the Shanxi provincial health department.

"After a wave of marketization in the field of health care, the recent medical reform aimed to make basic medical service a public welfare. This change of mindset is a great progress in itself," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2010)