4.8b yuan injection into rural healthcare

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-04 07:47

The central government is pumping 4.8 billion yuan ($698 million) into rural healthcare this year, the Ministry of Health said late last month.

The funds, part of the latest 100 billion yuan economic stimulus package, will mainly be used to build and renovate rural hospitals and clinics, as well as buy basic medical equipment, the ministry said in a statement.

Hospitals and clinics at and under the county levels, and grassroots medical institutions serving farms, forested areas and remote islands, stand to benefit from the latest funds.

Township clinics will get the biggest piece of the pie at 1.9 billion yuan, as they are at the center of a three-layer (county, township and village) rural medical care network that the authorities are establishing.

The government is reducing the number of such clinics but wants to enhance the quality and services of the existing ones, the ministry said.

The country had nearly 40,000 township clinics by the end of 2006, with each town having at least one clinic, ministry figures showed.

Analysts said one-third of the 4.8 billion yuan will be used to better equip rural medical institutions.

"Many rural clinics are in dire need of medical equipment and one-third of these should be replaced," Jin Yan, analyst at Zheshang Securities, was quoted by Southern Metropolis as saying on Nov 27.

The ministry will decide on distributing the latest funds among local governments before Dec 10, Huang Xiaolin, deputy director of the Guangdong provincial health bureau, said.