Fang Laiying (The Beijing News): We have already realized that, to meet the public's demand for medical services, it's impossible to only rely on expanding already existing hospitals by adding beds and prolonging doctors' hours and so forth. What we need now is to further expand community medical services.

Community hospitals have remained underdeveloped for many years. A big reason for this is the shortage of doctors. It's almost impossible to bring in new medical graduates to work in community clinics. Therefore, we have to make full use of our existing pool of doctors, who are all on-the-job doctors in public hospitals.

Doctors are excellent medical resources, and are supposed to operate in accordance with the rules of the market and not be restricted to the current personnel system in public hospitals. However, how can we persuade patients, who prefer big public hospitals, to go to community medical agencies? The answer lies in mobilizing on-the-job doctors from these big hospitals. If doctors from public hospitals are willing to open their own clinics, policy support should be offered to them.

Private clinics enjoy their own advantages. Their doctors have accumulated a lot of experience from big hospitals and are usually capable of communicating with patients. These clinics don't need medical inspection equipment, or other expensive hardware, as they can entrust a qualified third party to do the necessary physical examination for patients. We hope that once these clinics are opened, they will act well and actively in communities, benefiting more and more people.

Jiang Hua (www.xilu.com): It's a good idea to allow on-the-job doctors to open their own clinics, but it's not easy to run such a clinic. Beijing is not an easy place for a doctor to start his or her own clinic. Even if the doctor has successfully opened a clinic, he or she has to consider how to manage and operate it. A doctor may be professional at medical treatment, but management is a different skill. Doctors in Beijing's big public hospitals, particularly excellent doctors, are usually very busy, and thus they have little extra time to manage their own private clinic.

Guo Changsheng (www.mszz.cn): The reality is, the country's best doctors and medical experts are serving in public hospitals in big cities, and as a result, patients from around the country rush to these hospitals for medical treatment.

To encourage on-the-job doctors to open clinics means medical resources will be distributed in accordance with market rules, which will mobilize current medical resources to the largest extent. The major objective for this policy is to cushion the conflicts between the public's huge demand for quality medical treatment and the limited medical resources, particularly excellent doctors.

When doctors run their own clinics while keeping their posts in big hospitals at the same time, conflicts between doctors and their hospitals will come up easily. Thus, it's important to balance interest sharing between the two. Another problem is that private clinics are unlikely to be covered by the country's medical insurance system. A major obstacle for the establishment of private clinics is the complicated and strict approval procedure. Compared to public hospitals, these clinics will bear heavy tax burdens and difficulty in purchasing medical equipment.

Lei Hongpei (Xuzhou Daily): Most doctors feel they will not choose to operate a private clinic. The evaluation of their professional titles as well as pensions and all kinds of benefit after retirement depend on the hospital that employs them. Although the policy grants individual doctors the freedom to run their own clinics, hospitals tend to hold on to their best doctors and prevent them from leaving.

However, if doctors and hospitals can reach a balance in terms of economic interests and various other aspects, medical capacity will be improved, and this is beneficial to the public. Private clinics are mostly operating in communities, where doctors are badly needed. Patients who usually find it difficult to see a doctor in big hospitals will now have easy access to quality doctors in community clinics. On the basis of doing well in hospitals, doctors can make extra money in their private clinics.

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