ONE-FIFTH of the world’s population is suffering a calamitous collapse in healthcare provision, warn several papers in this week, which examine the effects of free-market economic reforms on the Chinese health system since 1978.
Faced with huge disparities in access to healthcare between the urban rich and rural poor, the government is planning a shake-up entitled “Healthy China 2020”, which includes an early goal to restore universal access to primary healthcare by 2010. As China is wrestling with problems suffered by many countries – soaring healthcare budgets, the rise of “western” diseases such as obesity and cancer, and unequal access…
