One in 7 Chinese travel for health careFebruary 10, 2011About one in seven, or 15%, of Chinese residents say at least one member oftheir household needed to travel to another community for medical care inthe past year, a Gallup survey said.
China is set to start on the final year of its three-year plan to provide”safe, effective, convenient, and affordable” healthcare to all Chinese.
The government allocated US$2.9 billion – out of the US$129 billion it wasexpected to spend on the reform between 2009 and 2011 – for the constructionof more than 5,000 hospitals in 2009. More than 10,000 health institutionsand about 70,000 village clinics reportedly were built.
Healthcare services in rural areas of China typically lack the same level ofaccess and quality present in urban areas.
As in many other Asian countries, reported travel for medical care outsidethe country is low – less than half of 1% of Chinese say they needed to dothis in the past year – across all regions.