CHINA, NATIONAL, SOCIETY, EDITORIAL: When You Can't Afford to Live, Die or Give Birth
By Shi Rui
5000 RMB won't even get you born
A newborn baby died in a small private clinic in Wulumuqi city, Xinjiang Province on November 12th, 2005. The doctor of the clinic did not have a medical certification and was arrested soon thereafter. When asked why they didn't go to the regular public hospital for parturition, the parents said, "It's too expensive, we can not afford it."
Before Zhou Jie got pregnant, she and her husband Lin Xiao had worked in the city as migrant laborers for a year to save money for childbirth. They saved 5,000 RMB ($612) by the end of 2004, which gave them the confidence that they were ready. Hoping to have a clever and healthy baby, the mother took the doctor's advice several months before her parturition and went to the public hospital for a physical exam regularly.
In October, however, the couple found that over 3,000 Yuan had been spent on all kinds of exams. They had only about ￥1, 000 left and the real childbirth had not even begun.
"I visited more than ten public hospitals and got more and more disappointed," Mr. Lin said. "The charge of the childbirth operation, plus inpatient fee, ranged from ￥4, 000 to ￥10, 000. If I had had money, I would not have sent her to the private clinic and my son would not have died," Lin Xiao said as he cried.
This is not the saddest medical tragedy to happen in China today, since Chinese people are still troubled by the high price and poor service of public hospitals. In recent years, the government has cut the price of medicine 17 times but the improvement in medical treatment is tiny. It's not only because the policy failed to be carried out completely; it's also due to excessive, repeated charges for physical exams and other nursing services.
What's the key point of the medical reformation? People in their 30s and 40s must remember the medical care system ten or twenty years ago, when the patient could apply for reimbursement and his or her company would pay back 50% - 80% (sometimes even 100%) of the medical fee.
I get confused. What is going on in our country? Maybe reform released the financial burden of the nation but it also turned public hospitals into independent moneymaking agencies. It's not a secret that each department of these public hospitals is given a profit goal every year (or season), and in order to achieve the target, the departments make full efforts to prescribe unnecessary medicine, hospitalize patients with light illness and offer excessive and repeated exams and services.
The effort to take your money is so obvious it's ridiculous.
Last year, I was in the hospital for a lower back condition. I had not a trace of fever and, medically speaking, I was not supposed to. The nurse visited my room that night to measure my body temperature once per hour, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.; she bothered me to death. Sleepily, I asked how much would be charged for the constant taking of my temperature, and she told me ￥5 each time.
In my eyes, hospitals today are just shopping centers and patients are consumers--consumers who know nothing about the commodity. They don’t know whether they really need it; whether it is of good quality or not, and whether the price is reasonable. Once you enter the hospital you are like pork on the chopping board.
So, nowadays in China, do not get ill, or get pregnant, if you have no money.
3,000 RMB before you die, please
Pingle town, Qionglai city of Sichuan province--black smoke rose from the bamboo forest at 10 a.m. Nov. 24th 2005, giving out a disgusting smell. The smoke came from a burning dead body.
Chen Guohai, 47, died of epilepsy on Nov. 21st. Since he had no child, his nephew Wang buried him in the forest, but the inhumation was opposed by the Pingle-town government, which ordered Wang to cremate the body.
"They (the officials of the town) asked me to pay 3,000 Yuan for the cremation, but I don't have the money," Wang told a journalist. "A vice bailiff even threatened to dig my uncle's body up and burn him with gasoline."
His threat came true 3 days after Chen's death.
If Chen Guohai had known his miserable ending, he would have begun to save the 3,000 Yuan long before he died.
The public criticized the arbitrariness of the local government officials when the news came out. But we have more to think about.
To everyone, death is inevitable. In the old times, the rich could buy huge plots and tombs for their last inhabitancy, and the poor could be wrapped in his mat and buried in the barren soil. Nowadays, society is more civilized. With the coming of civilization, however, came the increase in the cost of dying: only the burning costs 3,000 Yuan, that's not to mention the dressing, the face-painting, the urn, and tombstone.
What can we do with 3,000 Yuan in Sichuan Province? It equals to 1,500 kilos of rice, or 750 kilos of apples; it can cover 20 months' meal expense of a college student in the city; it is what an ordinary peasant family might earn in two or three years. Not saved mind you, but earned; most farm families struggle hard just to make ends meet at the end of each year, so they seldom have a money surplus to 'save.' Shudder to think if 2 people in the same family died in the same year?
The dead have gone but those in life must carry on.
Following the hospitals, the crematoriums became another profit-making industry. Since then, the wish of "death pays all scores" will never be fulfilled.
If you are too poor to give birth to a baby, or to get medical treatment for your lethal illness, please give up the idea of committing suicide however desperate you are, because you can not afford it either. All the same charges apply.
5000 RMB won't even get you born
A newborn baby died in a small private clinic in Wulumuqi city, Xinjiang Province on November 12th, 2005. The doctor of the clinic did not have a medical certification and was arrested soon thereafter. When asked why they didn't go to the regular public hospital for parturition, the parents said, "It's too expensive, we can not afford it."
Before Zhou Jie got pregnant, she and her husband Lin Xiao had worked in the city as migrant laborers for a year to save money for childbirth. They saved 5,000 RMB ($612) by the end of 2004, which gave them the confidence that they were ready. Hoping to have a clever and healthy baby, the mother took the doctor's advice several months before her parturition and went to the public hospital for a physical exam regularly.
In October, however, the couple found that over 3,000 Yuan had been spent on all kinds of exams. They had only about ￥1, 000 left and the real childbirth had not even begun.
"I visited more than ten public hospitals and got more and more disappointed," Mr. Lin said. "The charge of the childbirth operation, plus inpatient fee, ranged from ￥4, 000 to ￥10, 000. If I had had money, I would not have sent her to the private clinic and my son would not have died," Lin Xiao said as he cried.
This is not the saddest medical tragedy to happen in China today, since Chinese people are still troubled by the high price and poor service of public hospitals. In recent years, the government has cut the price of medicine 17 times but the improvement in medical treatment is tiny. It's not only because the policy failed to be carried out completely; it's also due to excessive, repeated charges for physical exams and other nursing services.
What's the key point of the medical reformation? People in their 30s and 40s must remember the medical care system ten or twenty years ago, when the patient could apply for reimbursement and his or her company would pay back 50% - 80% (sometimes even 100%) of the medical fee.
I get confused. What is going on in our country? Maybe reform released the financial burden of the nation but it also turned public hospitals into independent moneymaking agencies. It's not a secret that each department of these public hospitals is given a profit goal every year (or season), and in order to achieve the target, the departments make full efforts to prescribe unnecessary medicine, hospitalize patients with light illness and offer excessive and repeated exams and services.
The effort to take your money is so obvious it's ridiculous.
Last year, I was in the hospital for a lower back condition. I had not a trace of fever and, medically speaking, I was not supposed to. The nurse visited my room that night to measure my body temperature once per hour, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.; she bothered me to death. Sleepily, I asked how much would be charged for the constant taking of my temperature, and she told me ￥5 each time.
In my eyes, hospitals today are just shopping centers and patients are consumers--consumers who know nothing about the commodity. They don’t know whether they really need it; whether it is of good quality or not, and whether the price is reasonable. Once you enter the hospital you are like pork on the chopping board.
So, nowadays in China, do not get ill, or get pregnant, if you have no money.
3,000 RMB before you die, please
Pingle town, Qionglai city of Sichuan province--black smoke rose from the bamboo forest at 10 a.m. Nov. 24th 2005, giving out a disgusting smell. The smoke came from a burning dead body.
Chen Guohai, 47, died of epilepsy on Nov. 21st. Since he had no child, his nephew Wang buried him in the forest, but the inhumation was opposed by the Pingle-town government, which ordered Wang to cremate the body.
"They (the officials of the town) asked me to pay 3,000 Yuan for the cremation, but I don't have the money," Wang told a journalist. "A vice bailiff even threatened to dig my uncle's body up and burn him with gasoline."
His threat came true 3 days after Chen's death.
If Chen Guohai had known his miserable ending, he would have begun to save the 3,000 Yuan long before he died.
The public criticized the arbitrariness of the local government officials when the news came out. But we have more to think about.
To everyone, death is inevitable. In the old times, the rich could buy huge plots and tombs for their last inhabitancy, and the poor could be wrapped in his mat and buried in the barren soil. Nowadays, society is more civilized. With the coming of civilization, however, came the increase in the cost of dying: only the burning costs 3,000 Yuan, that's not to mention the dressing, the face-painting, the urn, and tombstone.
What can we do with 3,000 Yuan in Sichuan Province? It equals to 1,500 kilos of rice, or 750 kilos of apples; it can cover 20 months' meal expense of a college student in the city; it is what an ordinary peasant family might earn in two or three years. Not saved mind you, but earned; most farm families struggle hard just to make ends meet at the end of each year, so they seldom have a money surplus to 'save.' Shudder to think if 2 people in the same family died in the same year?
The dead have gone but those in life must carry on.
Following the hospitals, the crematoriums became another profit-making industry. Since then, the wish of "death pays all scores" will never be fulfilled.
If you are too poor to give birth to a baby, or to get medical treatment for your lethal illness, please give up the idea of committing suicide however desperate you are, because you can not afford it either. All the same charges apply.
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