News from the Healthy Department

My observation about Chinese hospitals is that the birth rate is higher than the death rate, so their still in business. They’re not saving lives, in fact I believe that it’s more dangerous to go to a hospital in China than not!The first time I came to China in 1995 the doctors in the “healthy department,” as my boss called it, asked me if I brought my own syringes. “Most foreigners do,” I was told. In the ten plus years that have passed the healthcare system here has certainly improved. Now they ask me “do you want real or fake medicine? The real is more expensive.” Even with these great improvements, the Carnegie Institute ranks China in the bottom 3 of the world for fair access to health care—yes, that’s right only Burma and Brazil are worse. Half of the poor in China receive no health care at all.The Chinese government, bless their little red hearts, is trying to correct this by eliminating graft (Imagine that, corruption in China’s SOE’s!). No doubt this is a good place to start, but limiting big budget technology imports and back-door payments for surgery is not going to raise the standard of health care that most Chinese people receive. How about more incentives for bright students to go into medicine or more education for doctors to raise the quality of care given (4 years after high school is the standard now)? Or how about some competition in the industry? There is tons of competition in the cosmetic medical industry (boob jobs, nose jobs, eye lifts, tummy tucks and skin and teeth whitening) and the standards are much higher than the hospitals and clinics that serve the rest of China.