Wen sets out guidelines in five-year reform plan
Premier Wen Jiabao has taken a first step towards his recent pledge of greater support for the country's fragile health-care system by presenting a five-year development blueprint, state media reported.
The Guidelines for the Health Development Programme during the 11th Five-Year Period was approved at a State Council working meeting yesterday, along with the cabinet's work priorities for this year, Xinhua reported.
Mr Wen was hosting the first cabinet meeting since the two-week annual session of the National People's Congress, which ended last week, where he delivered a government work report focusing on expanding social programmes such as health care, education and environmental protection.
Expounding on Mr Wen's speech at the NPC, the guidelines specify a series of goals concerning every aspect of the country's public health and medical programmes.
According to the guidelines, the administration aims to establish a universal basic health-care system, to regulate the poorly functioning public health system, to build a co-operative medical care programme in the countryside and to regulate medicine prices and hospital management.
Analysts said the approval of the guidelines was part of efforts to institutionalise Mr Wen's health reform plans.
In his government work report, Mr Wen vowed to double spending on medical care to 10.1 billion yuan this year.
He also pledged more health support for rural areas, where 90 per cent of the population has no health insurance and little access to doctors.
Under a trial rural co-operative health programme that he proposed, the proportion of rural areas covered by basic health care would be expanded from 50 per cent to 80 per cent.
The latest national health survey, carried out in 2003, revealed that about 73 per cent of people living in rural areas who should have sought medical treatment chose not to do so because the costs were too high.
