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Private sector lures more medicos

By Liu Zhihua | China Daily | Updated: 2013-10-30 07:35

 Private sector lures more medicos

Parents wait in line in the outpatient service hall at the Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai. Ding Ting / Xinhua

Private sector lures more medicos

Driven by smiles 

Private sector lures more medicos

Community health centers to ease pressure on large hospitals 

Better pay, job satisfaction and work-life balance are why a number of doctors say they are turning their back on the public hospital system. Liu Zhihua reports.

When Yu Ying, an emergency physician and celebrity on Twitter-like online platform SinaWeibo, announced that she would quit the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, one of the most famous hospitals in China, for a private practice, she probably had not expected the post would be forwarded more than 11,600 times, and get 10,000 comments and 5,000 "like (zan)" clicks.

But the reason she resigned from a much-coveted position in a top public hospital is simple.

"I was not happy there," Yu says.

She said the performance evaluation and promotion mechanism in public hospitals encourages doctors to focus on scientific research, rather than on patients, and she was also tired of not being able to speak her mind in that environment, Yu explains.

"Besides, I earned too little. People work for money or for interest. I couldn't get satisfied either way, and I left."

Yu is far from alone.

An increasing number of doctors have been leaving the public healthcare system for various reasons, although working in a public hospital, especially in a reputed one, often means lifetime employment.

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