As the only doctor in the Tibetan-inhabited village of Gongongma,Wangchen has knocked on Yang Paljor's door three times this year --once to vaccinate the villager's six-year-old grandson, once tooffer the child a routine medical check-up and in the latest visitto check up on the youngster's mother. Almost every month, 50-year-old Wangchen patrols on his motorbike,with a medical kit on his back, around this pasturing village ofmore than 500 households, or roughly 2,870 people, in Kangtsacounty of northwest China's Qinghai Province. His face has tannedfrom prolonged sun exposure on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Vaccinating kids, running physical check-ups on seniors and womenof reproductive age, maintaining villagers' health records andmonitoring infectious diseases constitute the major part of hiseveryday work.
He is one of many hard-working provincial doctors in China toilingso the country can meet its aim of bolstering medical care inremote areas. He is helped by authorities pumping funds into ruralmedical facilities, as part of a healthcare reform program that isset to achieve a major milestone this year. In 2009, the Chinese government launched a nationwide campaign toextend basic medical services to rural and urban residents alike.The State Council, or China's Cabinet, set the goal of ensuring aclinic for each administrative village and a village doctor forevery 1,000 rural residents. According to officials, China had set up more than 25,000 villageclinics by the end of 2011, "very close to achieving the goal." Gongongma was one of the villages to get a new clinic in the drive.And Wangchen's access to resources continues to improve, as doesthe availability of affordable medicines for his patients.Nevertheless, China still requires the dedication of Wangchen, andmany like him, if it is to to meet its health goals.
In sparsely-populated Gongongma, some families live more than 40 kmfrom the clinic. "It usually takes five to six days for me tofinish patrolling the village," Wangchen says. Across the province, there are a total of 6,689 doctors of his kindscattered in 4,243 village clinics, according to Ma Zhong, a ruralhealth official with the provincial health department of Qinghai. "Village clinics and the great number of doctors therein areplaying an increasingly important role in giving rural residentsaccess to basic public health services," Ma explains. For decades, people living in the countryside have had difficultyseeing a doctor, adds Zhu Hua, a rural economy research fellow withthe Qinghai Academy of Social Sciences.
"For one thing, they haveto travel far to the nearest hospital in town. For another, medicalexpenses are usually too high to afford." Therefore, Zhu notes, it is necessary to cultivate medicalpersonnel and improve medical services for the more than 700million Chinese now living rurally. "Village clinics form the foundation of medical care, and theincreasing number of clinic doctors will be of great help toaddressing rural residents' difficulty in acquiring medicalservices," he says. In 1983, Wangchen followed in his father's footsteps and started topractice medicine in the village. For the following 20 years, hediagnosed patients in his house using little more than astethoscope, sphygmomanometer and thermometer.
In 2003, however, the village clinic was built with thegovernment's assistance. Comprised of a consulting room,transfusion room and pharmacy, it now features regular medicalfacilities such as an examining table, autoclave sterilizer andtransfusion stands. According to Wangchen, the county government of Kangtsa equippedthe clinic with a computer last year to help him keep an electronicrecord of villagers' health status. And he is expecting to receivea portable ultrasonic device this year. Since 2000, village doctors in Kangtsa have shifted the focus ofwork to providing villagers with public health services, includingvaccination, and health care for children, pregnant and parturientwomen, says Liu Guangming, head of the county's bureau of healthand family planning.
"But during the initial years, they could get little, if any,financial support from the village committee and countygovernment," he adds. According to Liu, it was in 2008 that village doctors started toreceive fiscal subsidies from governments at the central,provincial, prefectural and county levels. In 2011, Wangchen was given more than 6,000 yuan (about 953.4 U.S.dollars) in public health service subsidies. Counting the 8,000 yuan per year that the provincial government in2011 started to grant each village doctor in pasturing areas andother types of subsidy, his income added up to around 20,000 yuanlast year, "almost tripling that of 2010." Furthermore, the Qinghai provincial government plans to furtherincrease subsidies for village doctors' public health services. In 2012, per capita spending on basic public health services willrise from 25 yuan to 40 yuan, at least 30 percent of which will goto village doctors, promises Ma Shunqing, vice-governor of Qinghaiand head of the province's healthcare reform program.
While increasing village doctors' income and upgrading villageclinics' facilities, China has also extended its "essentialmedicine system" to these clinics to ensure rural residents' accessto key drugs that satisfy priority health-care needs and areaffordable for the public, and in this way cut their medical costs. All village clinics across Qinghai have adopted the system, givingpriority to using essential drugs when treating patients and withgovernment subsidies, selling the drugs at purchase price,according to Ma. "There has been a 15 percent drop in medicine prices since theclinic started to sell essential drugs at cost prices last July,"says Wang Shengxu, the doctor in Qinghai's Shangxinzhuang village. The clinic now offers 300 kinds of western and traditional Chinesemedicines, as well as ethnic drugs, all on the state's andprovince's essential drug lists. Village clinics used to rely heavily on profits from selling drugs,Zhu Hua says.
"But the extended use of essential medicines sold atpurchase prices is transferring the profits to rural residents andmaking them the biggest winner.". I am an expert from Computer Hardware & Software, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as toshiba centrino laptop , toshiba tecra m3.
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