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The Ministry of Health Tuesday dismissed a published report saying that a plan to lower medical bills was halted.
The plan, part of the medical reform initiative launched in April, will discourage State-owned hospitals from over-prescribing medicine in order to make a profit. Some doctors prescribe as many drugs as possible to raise the amount that customers pay.
But the report by China Business last week that the reform was postponed and that hospitals do not have government subsidies was denied. Hospitals will still be profit-oriented without government subsidies.
The report disappointed patients who have been waiting for the reform but the ministry blamed the publication.
"The original report is not true. The reporter does not know the facts clearly and made the report on hearsay," Deng Haihua, the spokesman of the ministry said at a news conference in Beijing Tuesday.
Deng said the plan is being prepared with pilot cities already picked.
"It's under approval of the State Council, and will soon be carried out," Deng said, without giving the date.
The ministry's vice minister Zhang Mao said Monday that they will continue promoting the reform.
In addition to lowering the medical fees, the reform seeks to improve the quality of medical workers in rural areas.
By 2011, every health clinic in townships would need to have at least one approved doctor.
Some 360,000 training spots will be available to township medical workers and some 13.7 million training spots will be allocated for healthcare workers in villages within three years.
Rural residents supported the programs.
"The doctor in my village had once diagnosed appendicitis as enteritis. If they become more professional, a lot of us will not spend more to go to a downtown county and city to see doctors," Luo Lan, a farmer who works in Guangdong and is from Hunan Province, told the Global Times.
"Besides increasing and improving manpower, we also hope the government will improve the medical facility in villages," she said.
(Global Times January 13, 2010) | 
