China's health-care system has fallen behind in the country's breakneck economic growth, and the nation faces a major challenge to look after its 1.3 billion people, the health minister said yesterday.
Gao Qiang , speaking at a forum carried live on state television, said it would be many years before China could put in place free health care for all, adding that government spending was still far from enough.
'China's health industry faces a severe challenge. It has had enormous successes, but we clearly recognise its development has seriously fallen behind that of the economy and other sectors of society,' Mr Gao said.
'People have reacted strongly to the problem of it being difficult and expensive to get medical care,' he told the forum, organised by a think-tank under the State Council.
The growing rich-poor, rural-urban divide is much in evidence in the mainland's medical services, and featured strongly in Premier Wen Jiabao's annual work report to the National People's Congress.
During the NPC annual session, the Ministry of Health was under fire from NPC deputies and their counterparts from the advisory Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who lamented that despite China's economic success, the nation had lagged behind developing countries in providing its people with basic health care.
