Doctor-Patient Relations

South Reviews

May 21

After more than a decade's deterioration in the medical and health care sectors owing to their overly market-oriented development, patients are faced with difficulty in accessing medical services at hospitals, while doctors are finding their image in society is on the decline.

The past few decades have seen a downturn in the relationship between doctors and patients. As for how to rebuild affinity between the two sides, there are many proposals: public hospitals should be act as providers of public welfare, doctors should be guaranteed decent salaries, medical resources should be more evenly distributed to community hospitals, the mechanism of dispute settlement should be made more reliable.

The uneven distribution of medical resources is the first factor to be blamed. Hospitals are criticized for subsidizing their medical services with overly expensive drug prescriptions.

The most important subject for a tangible reform may be: how to set up a mechanism where patients' medical requirements can be swiftly met with no patient feeling that they have been abandoned.

Under this mechanism, doctors are provided with decent salaries and enjoy a high standard of living. As a result, patients will not feel that they are being exploited by their doctors.

Doctors are supposed to treat their patients as they do their own children, and in this case, doctors will, in return, receive respect of the highest level from the whole of society. This is what we are expecting to see and we believe this day will eventually come.

Care for the Elderly

Oriental Outlook

May 22

China already had more than 200 million elderly people over the age of 60 by 2013. As a solution to cope with the aging problem in Chinese society, home-based care service has been proposed as the fundamental strategy.

The concept of "home-based care" was first proposed in China in 2001 and more than a decade has passed since such service centers were first set up in some locations.

Despite the country's huge financial inputs and policy assistance, the home-based care services are still struggling. The fundamental reason for this is that compared with institutions specialized in taking care of the elderly, when old people are scattered in communities, the task of accurately assessing and aggregating their detailed needs and demands is not an easy one. Therefore, it's important to make clear these people's demands before the problem is effectively tackled.

Caretakers play a big role in home-based care service, but there is a major shortage of such workers. Most of the well-trained and experienced workers are working in institutions dedicated to taking care of the elderly. Those who are serving the elderly at home are mostly migrant people or laid-off workers, with little professional experience or training, while a stable source of volunteers does not yet exist. Even if volunteers are willing to do the job, they are not professionals.

Addressing the issue of how to develop the country's elder care industry should rightfully be based on the demands of old people. A better understanding of their real needs will help businesses to make investments in the proper areas and also aid the government in formulating appropriate policies. Home-based care service is a response made to the current conditions experienced by China's elderly. It will serve as a guide for policy design and relevant industry development.

City Drainage Networks

People.com.cn

May 13

Recently, heavy rainstorms hit south China. In Shenzhen of Guangdong Province, the strongest rainstorm seen in the past six years caused flooding throughout in the city, leading to an almost total gridlock of the city's transportation network.

The result of an investigation done by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2011 revealed that during 2008 and 2010, rainstorms caused flooding in 62 percent of the 351 cities that were surveyed. In 2012, a rainstorm in Beijing in mid-July resulted in 79 deaths.

The aging urban drainage networks and their outdated design are always blamed for the floods. However, this time, in the modern city of Shenzhen, where it is presumed that the "aging problem" is impossible, the same problem has been discovered.

In March, heavy rain caused sinkholes to appear, an incident that occurred in Shenzhen 10 times in 2013 alone. The main reason given was once again the aging drainage network. This makes a city especially vulnerable to extreme weather.

Compared with the quick pace of urban expansion, climate change and the frequency of extreme weather, the pace of updating and expanding the drainage networks is left far behind.