Retired Chinese doctors asked to treat people in rural areas
February 26, 2013
Doctors in China are being asked to come out of retirement in order to help those in rural parts of the country. According to The Wall Street Journal, China's health officials are attempting to lessen the healthcare disparity between those in the wealthy parts and those in the poorer places around the nation.
China started a healthcare reform three years ago in hopes of eliminating these issues. The recent encouragement for retired doctors to move is a part of an attempt to bring healthcare to all of the residents in China, and is one of many initiatives to rid the country of its social inequalities, which have been hurting their economic growth, according to the news source.
Health minister Chen Zhu has put forth a number of incentives to hopefully get more doctors to the rural areas. He is offering free education and also developing new examinations that will lower the requirements to become a doctor in these areas. However, the main problem is that the majority of Chinese doctors prefer to live in the cities because of the progress being made in the medical fields in such areas, which highlights the vast differences between care in the cities and care in rural communities.
According to CRI English, Chen Zhu has recently been discussing what the most pertinent aspects of the healthcare reform are and what needs the most attention right now.
"One is to promote the coordination among medical hygiene system, health insurance system and medicine market circulation, as well as the reform of public hospitals," Chen Zhu told the media outlet. The other is sticking to the 'prevention first policy.'"
Those who want to talk about the recent news can make calls to China using international calling cards.