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Subject: THE PAINFUL HEALTH OF THE NATION
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liangzai
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I appreciate your honest critique of the politics. This is fresh in China!
A national basic health insurance is very important. It doesn't have to be as elaborate as in Europe, it could be done in steps. Take 10% yearly of the military budget, which is over-sized, and the situation is drastically improved.
2006-3-6 12:35 AM
#2
iluv2fish
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Sorry....
Tthat $45,000,000 is spoken for. This number will get bigger and bigger.
No healthcare for you!
2006-3-6 12:50 AM
#3
mengzhi
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The art of exaggeration.
" The shameful health of a nation " by swwind is a good and valid criticism of a nation's shortcoming in the health care system. It is the totally exaggerated, over-the-top, bloated, unduelly magnified and hysterical blown up conclusion which has deprived itself of its somber and serious implications. Health care can always be better ; this is true all over the world, including the richest and most advanced countries who have been tinkering with one system or another for centuries. To extrapolate one case of a kidney stone to the impending collapse of a nation's health is by all measures more a reflection of the author ( swwind ) than the issue. As is revealed, huge ( 9 fold ) increase in budget is being offered and along with it plenty of improvement. This positive and optimistic move is immediately seized upon by the same author as being just so much more for the pockets of the corrupt officials, blah blah and blah.
I think that swwind should take stock of his own mental frame of mind. This unfriendly, uncouth and uncalled for unadulterated bad-mouthing of China inspite of everything is juvenile and uneducated behaviour. I am now using some harsh words, reluctantly and in response to the unmitigated and silly diatribe which unfortunately is the stock and trade of a few ( only a few ) of the forumites.
We are more than willing to accept valid criticism. We are not so comfortable with savage illogical blabber when the aim of a topic is purely designed to irritate and annoy. Good cheer to swwind.
2006-3-6 03:33 AM
#4
iluv2fish
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OK ... Ok.... Good news - Bad news
Meng...perhaps you can now understand how you sound to us.
Ok, Everyone in the world is struggling with health care but......from what I understand everyone was
covered in China 20 years ago. Am I right there?
Good news -
"More than half of urban residents, by comparison, enjoy some kind of coverage, which is supplied by their employers."
"In the last several years China has experimented with reforms aimed at improving health care for
peasants. The most important is an insurance plan in which participating farmers must make an annual payment of a little more than a dollar to gain eligibility for basic medical treatments."
"The government, which under President Hu has made rural living standards a top priority, has recently announced an expansion of this experiment, with increased fees and increased coverage."
Bad news-
"Many peasants have complained that even the dollar payment is too big a burden and that in any event
the coverage the plan theoretically provides is inadequate. "
"As a result, according to the government's own estimates, in less than a generation a rural population
that once enjoyed universal, if rudimentary, coverage is now 79 percent uninsured."
""There's basically no safety net at all for medical care in the village I live in," said Yang Yunbiao, a worker
with a Chinese independent organization in Fuyang that aids poor sick people. "Our village has a lot of
aged people with disease who are unable to get treatment, just staying at home in bed with barely enough to eat. They are shut in and can't work, and their disease and poverty have taken away their dignity."
That that is balanced Meng...learn from it.
[
Last edited by iluv2fish at 2006-3-6 06:41 AM
]
2006-3-6 06:40 AM
#5
tongluren
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Shameful Exaggeration
It is the exaggeration of the Jia Yang Gui Zhi that is truly shameful. According to them, nothing that is done in China can hold a candle to that in the West.
If indeed China's medical system is so terrible, you'd still see mortality rate like that in the "biggest democracy in the world."
Let's compare. According to the CIA World Facts,:
United States - where medicine is supposedly "decades more advanced" than in China, and according to Jia Yang Gui Zhi, the paradise on earth:
Infant mortality rate:
total: 6.5 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 7.17 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 5.8 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 77.71 years
male: 74.89 years
female: 80.67 years (2005 est.)
Total fertility rate:
2.08 children born/woman (2005 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.6% (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
950,000 (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:
14,000 (2003 est.)
________________________
CHINA
Infant mortality rate:
total: 24.18 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 21.21 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 27.5 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 72.27 years
male: 70.65 years
female: 74.09 years (2005 est.)
Total fertility rate:
1.72 children born/woman (2005 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.1% (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
840,000 (2003 est.) - [actually this was recently adjusted down to less than 650,000 by 2006)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:
44,000 (2003 est.)
_____________________________
Let's look at countries with similar population as China, and a little less well run:
India:
Infant mortality rate:
total: 56.29 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 56.86 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 55.69 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 64.35 years
male: 63.57 years
female: 65.16 years (2005 est.)
Total fertility rate:
2.78 children born/woman (2005 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.9% (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
5.1 million (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:
310,000 (2001 est.)
Major infectious diseases:
Definition Field Listing
degree of risk: high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis are high risks in some locations
animal contact disease: rabies (2004)
___________________________________
What is the point of all this? Well, China is not yet paradise, obviously. But the capable government is doing wonders with what limited resources to take care of the folks, - yes, even the poor folks. The results are all in the numbers.
China leads the world in the control and prevention of infectitous dicseases. Cancer rates are MUCH lower than that in the United States. Cigarette smoking is a shame, but it takes time to work on it. But if you examine the efforts and results of the most recent epidemic "crises" (SARS and Avian Flu), despite illwishers predicting cataclysmic disasaters, like hundreds of millions of Chinese dying horrible deaths, China's effective medical systems held both of these crises at bay, and proudly so. Less than 200 died from SARS - more than 50 times that die from the common flu in the United States a year, more than 5 times that die in America of Blue Nile disease each year, even though America has only 1/5th the population.
What is the most telling? Look at the difference in the AIDS rate - 0.05% vs. America's 0.6%, a 1,200 percent difference. Where is the superiority? How is that "decades ahead of China" bragging manifested in real life?
We Chinese are very proud of the accomplishment of the hard working, smart working Chinese medical folks. Yes, there can be improvements. But don't exaggerate the rare extreme cases to bash the great nation.
2006-3-6 08:05 AM
#6
iluv2fish
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Yes I agree....
.....and don't slam the west when thee is much to do in your own backyard. Deal?
2006-3-6 08:10 AM
#7
tongluren
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Slam the West?
Sine when did the Chinese "slam the west"?
Did we volunteer, like via Voice of China to be broadcast from next to Gitmo into the lower 20, that America should really do somthing about violating the basic human rights of not only those locked up in Gitmo, but also the other 2 million rotting in America's infamous growth sector, the Correctional Industry? Do we file complaints with the UN Human Rights Council about how this dead end 3rd class convict population, with a gross overrepresentation of ethnic minorities, with a recidivism rate of over 90%, has no hope of rejoining society?
Do we point out the obvious on a daily basis that America's mistakening irresponsiblity for freedom allows the delivery of all form of destructive porn to be piped directly to 70 million cable families: MF, MMF, MMMMMMMMMFF, MM, MMMMMMMM, s&m, bestiality, rape, snuff, child pornography, resulting in an entire society accepting the stereotype that women are objects, to be used, and as a result more than half of women folks is the victim of unconsented sex?
Do we tell your pols in their faces that we find the way that they come to power, through periodic liars' contests, really curious? Do we ask tthe frank questions and demand that they explain why they lie every chance they have, at least when it comes election time (campaign promises being the biggest oxymorons in the 20th century, and continue today)?
No, how you wanna screw up your society is your previlege.
2006-3-6 08:32 AM
#8
mengzhi
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Collapse of the house of cards.
Dear tongluren,
Sock it to them baby. Take note fish and learn from this gentleman. His is the way to put forward a point, backed with statistics and facts and of course the offering of opinions and solutions where appropriate. Compare and contrast to those one liner cliche, grafitti bad mouthing from the likes of fish and one can easily see the great gap between the educational qualities of the two systems.
The medical care tentacles have spread so much so quickly in China , from the days of the " bare foot doctor " to the present day world's frontline centres, is a modern miracle. I have worked in two teaching hospitals in China and the scope and range of services, western and traditional medicine, acupuncture and pharmacies of both worlds being available simultaneously in the same hospitals , is a world's first. As tongluren , and I, have freely admitted, China has a long way to go before Utopia, but so has USA, UK and Europe.
There is a big distinction between well intentioned advice and criticism and that pinched face lemon sucking putting down of China just for the sake of putting someone down.
All the measurements in medicine; life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal morbidity, infection control, immunisation percentage, vaccine research and manufacture etc place China in the front ranks among all nations. This achievements have been achieved from the lowest of the low base in '49. Think about it . Thanks tongluren. Hi fives there !!
2006-3-6 10:54 AM
#9
iluv2fish
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"Do we point out the obvious on a daily basis"
Tong...where have you been? That is exactly what I am saying you guys do on this website...
"Do we point out the obvious on a daily basis ".....
I am saying add balance...like I did. Yes Meng makes fun of me because I do not have a college
education...I hope all Chinese are not like him.
I am saying point out in Cuba the men that are being held there by my government....I have questions
about that too. But also point out "something" about your own government. Is there no
balance at all in China.
Can you or the rest of the Chinese Formites not see one thing wrong in your president? Is there nothing
wrong in China that you can post on? You have already said that it is not Utopia...what might you do
different that your own government is not doing.
I am not saying your president is bad...you have idea's and opinions...let's here them. I am starting
to think that maybe the Chinese people can not think for themselves and maybe just maybe they
do need the government telling them what to do every step of the way.
Seriously, is there any idea's you can bring to the table that might make health care better in China?
If you just want to go tit for tat with a blue collar worker to make you feel better then stick with Meng....but
if you can bring some idea's or suggestions to the table...I think that might be good. You guys are the intellectuals…show me something. Just pointing out flaws in one another and flaws in each others country is really not the best way to go.
What do you say?
2006-3-6 12:11 PM
#11
liangzai
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Let's not manipulate statistics
QUOTE:
Originally posted by
tongluren
at 2006-3-6 08:05
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
840,000 (2003 est.) - [actually this was recently adjusted down to less than 650,000 by 2006)
http://www.avert.org/aidschina.htm
QUOTE:
There is a huge under reporting of AIDS cases, especially in the rural areas. This is for a variety of reasons which include a shortage of testing equipment and trained health staff, as well as the continuing stigma.
"Exact figures are difficult to arrive at because government at local levels are very reticent to report on actual cases, a situation compounded by individuals who are reluctant to come forward because of discrimination." - Qi Xiaoqiu, director of China's Department of Disease Control.
Estimates of future infections are equally difficult, but UNAIDS and other organisations have estimated that by 2010 there could be a generalised epidemic with between ten and twenty million HIV positive Chinese.
You will do you yourself and your country a great a disservice if you underestimate the AIDS threat. It is for real, and it will cost you and your countrymen a lot to keep at bay.
You would also want to tone down the risks on aviation flu; this is nothing like SARS, which was mostly a media bomb. Aviation flu, if it turns aggreesiive among humans, will do more evil to China than politics ever was able to... China is in no way prepared to handle such an epidemic, and the rest of the world are only slightly better equipped. It is a potential danger.
In 1955, China had 5% of the world GDP. Then China imploded into a black hole, and didn't come out in the sun until 1978. From then onward, China has had around 9% yearly growth. After 27 years, this growth has led to China once again having 5% of the world's GDP.
Thus China has just recently cleaned up after the terrible man-made catastrophes that occured in the country under maoism, and only NOW is China ready to take off for real. Please don't blow it this time.
When China gets rich for real, there has to be redistribution of the wealth. If large masses are still left out of the gains from the reforms, you will have it coming for you; if you want blood, you've got it.
2006-3-6 01:36 PM
#12
bourne
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Good health!
The same things may occur everyday in China, not only this poor farmer couldn’t afford the expensive medical treatment; the common urban residents can’t afford the illness expenditure also. It’s the Chinese status quo .I don’t know whether or not the deputies of ‘the two sessions’ have the same experiences, and how much does ‘the two sessions ’expend ? If the governors really care about the sufferings of the grass roots, they should take the concrete measures to resolve this kind of problem instead of crying out slogans in meeting room.
2006-3-6 04:02 PM
#13
mengzhi
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There are statistics and there are statistics.
swwind : statistics may not be accurate everytime but where possible these fundamentals of evidence based medicine and trends should be quoted. To extrapolate the health of a nation from one kidney stone case is stretching the boundary that little tad too far, don't you agree ?
liangzai : You have quoted Mr Qi Xiaoqiu the director of China's Department of Disease Control (DDC) saying that there are lots of technical and cultural reasons for peasants to want to hide diseases which carry a stigma. Again let me say that this is a problem on a global scale. Even well educated and well off folks will deny tests for HIV because of the social prejudice and ostracism which may come with it. To focus and castigate the Chinese government alone is unfair, unwarranted and unrewarding. As you can see the director of DDC admits to it and wants to do something about it. You cannot be more transparent than that .
The Chinese government , after some initial hesitation and reluctance in the tracking of SARS, HIV and avian influenza cases, have changed attitude and have put in huge amount of finance, human resources and R&D into collecting, cooperating and controlling the isolation,education and treatment of all these infectious diseases. China has earned praises from the WHO in her contributions in these events. China is presently the only country in the world who has an effective vaccine for avian flu for use in fowls.
No reasonable and logical Chinese is going to stick his/her head in the sand over such matters because the victims of neglect here would be Chinese ; and no one, rich or poor, can guarantee being spared. We welcome constructive criticisms and preferrably some suggested solutions. We do not welcome demonisation and humiliation as the west has been doing for the past 200 years.
Liangzai also quoted China having 5% of the global GDP in'55. He also says China is now contributing to the same 5% global GDP in '06. Now I am no economist, but seeing China is now variously quoted as the 4th to the 2nd largest economy in the world, I find it difficult to see how she is still producing only 5% GDP? I hope you can give me a lesson in this ' rabbit in the hat ' economic calculation. Thanks.
2006-3-6 07:12 PM
#14
liangzai
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis ... y_GDP_%28nominal%29
Source: IMF
World GDP: 40.9 trillion
China GDP: 1.65 trillion.
This was 2004, so now China roughly makes 5% of the total world GDP, nominally (currency converted at market exchange rate).
If you list by purchasing power parity, China has 11%.
Regarding HIV: I am not castigating anybody, I am in fact telling YOU to be more modest instead of bragging about how well China handles this. These are global diseases that need cooperation, transparency and seriousness in all aspects. The government may say that they have a vaccine, but we are talking about 55 billion tame feathered creatures in China alone... would you give me a cost estimate of such a vaccination program?
2006-3-6 07:58 PM
#15
doberman
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I don't agree
QUOTE:
To extrapolate the health of a nation from one kidney stone case is stretching the boundary that little tad too far, don't you agree ?
I don't agree , Mencius. I think here Swwind is right. If it would be a single case of some doctor-bstrd in a hospital, no matter where, small village in Anhui, Beijing , New York or Warsaw - this wold be a drastic case of derelict of duty to say the least. But Swwind brought a representative sample of how the system works. I paid myself for an operation of removal of stone from kidney for an old Chinese. I could afford it - he could not. If I did not resigne from part of my cash he would have been sniffing flowers' roots already for a few years. The total money including "special fees" were unaffordable for him.
And this is just a kidney stone case, not a hyper complicated brain surgery costing zillions and off reach for most of people including the developed countries.
Samples, (provided they are representative) are well describing the system.
[
Last edited by doberman at 2006-3-7 06:54 AM
]
2006-3-6 11:24 PM
#16
tongluren
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Why Stop At 5%?
1000 years ago, China's production was 80% of the world's GDP. The technologically advanced Chinese literally dug clay out of the ground and mold it and fire it into desirable objects, for which the West paid their gold and silver to buy.
Yes, China stumbled. But China is coming back, and there is no reason to believe that the China's share would not continue to increase for another 100 years or more.
In terms of money spent and results garnered, China's medical system is already at the top. As China gets richer, there wil be more money to spend, and to be spend wiser than anywhere in the West.
Actually Canada's system sounds rather attractive, if China can afford it. Rich or poor, high or low, everyone gets the same minimal guarantee of access to medicine. Maybe not everyone would be given brain surgery if he wants one, but something to take care of the well being of say 90% of medical needs.
2006-3-7 03:59 AM
#17
mengzhi
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Rubber necking, waiting for disaster.
liangzai : May I simply restate that China has managed to set up a good to excellent medical system and service , from absolute and abject zilch in 60 years under the communists' watch. This itself deserves some credit and accolade from those who are objective and neutral in politics. I am the first to admit that it is far from perfect . When the general population did not know what a hospital looked like under the Qing dynasty and subsequently under KMT, the present system is mighty impressive.
I do not know how much individual scheme would cost but I know that this government have and will allocate whatever finance and resources are necessary to combat any infectious epidemics pending. They have already vaccinated 16 billion domestic fowl to date. It is time the Chinese detractors stop rubber necking and waiting for something disastrous to happen and thus able to say " tck tck tck that is so sad ".
doberman : I do not believe I have the time or the ability to educate you. I'll leave it to some of my more capable colleagues.
tongluren : the Canadian medical system is among the best, and among the most expensive. The major component nowadays in medical expenditure is in fact in the diagnostic area; CT MRI and the sophisticated battery of tests and tests cost money. Some of the treatments and operations are also expensive, even controversial as to the allocation criteria . eg would you do a heart transplant on a chronic smoker who is unlikely to stop his nicotine addiction. Is this a ' waste ' of money and resource whereas another non-smoker, who is behind in the queue, may have a better outcome. So the ethical dimension goes on. It is not ONLY money alone. Thanks for your input.s'
2006-3-7 04:49 AM
#18
doberman
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Reply #18 mengzhi's post
QUOTE:
doberman : I do not believe I have the time or the ability to educate you. I'll leave it to some of my more capable colleagues.
I know, Mengzi, that
I comit a lot of gramatical and ortografical mistakes in english
, Thank you for pointing this. I edited my post after your hint.
What about Swwind's sample? Still you don't think it is representative? When have you been to a Chinese village recently? What do you know about the subject?
[
Last edited by doberman at 2006-3-7 07:01 AM
]
2006-3-7 06:58 AM
#19
mengzhi
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It is nothing personal.
Dear doberman,
I wish to correct the misunderstanding here. I have no quarrel with people's English or typographical errors; I do it all the time and I am still struggling with this foreign tongue. What I meant about your ' education ' is about the jump some people make , with a single mistake or incident to generalising it to involving the whole nation, the whole race and on and on ....... It is an entrenched attitude which some westerners are still unwilling or unable to put down. They like and enjoy bashing China and Chinese because they had good reasons for feeling superior for the past 200 years of colonisation and lording over the natives. Now the natives have grown up. They not only can compete with the colonial masters , they are beating them hands down. This is a very annoying and uncomfortable feeling of course. The " I-am-better-than-you " attitude persists but now the display of it is more a joke than a fact.
Back to this thread by swwind. It is based on one or two items of tear jerking human sufferings, to which we all would like to help if we could. Instead he extrapolated to the whole nation being hard hearted and uncaring etc. THIS I object and would speak out against. When you said you agree with swwind, I have to let go of ever being able to convince you otherwise; that is what I meant. No offence meant. I will still hear what you have to say if our paths cross. Cheers.
2006-3-7 07:14 AM
#20
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