A woman (L) receives medical checkup at a hospital in Dagze County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, April 9, 2007. (Xinhua Photo)Cangju, a resident of Songpan Township, Lhunzhub County, Lhasa, was hospitalized for gastritis. It is the third time that Cangju was hospitalized this year.
The treatment cost her more than 1,600 yuan (234.4 U.S. dollars), but luckily the cost was later reimbursed by the township government.
"No one wants to be sick, especially the farmers," she said. "Medical treatment sometimes can be as high as a farmer's annual income. In the past, quite a few residents in my village became poor because of sickness."
China's Central Government introduced the free medical treatment policy in Tibet in 1951 and since then, government medical subsidies have been on the rise.
However, at that time, there was no special source of the funding for such treatment for rural Tibetans, according to Wang Jianpeng, director of the Office for Maternity and Child Care of Tibet's Health Department.
According to statistics, from 1951 to 1992, every farmer or herder could get only 5.5 yuan for his/her free medical treatment per year. The financing to them to buy medicines was 11.5 million yuan only per year. The standards for health care were quite low, while the hospitals faced medicine shortages.
In 1993, a special fund for free medical treatment for farmers and herdsmen was set up by the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government. Also that year, a total of 21.5 million yuan was earmarked for rural Tibetans, with each farmer or herder getting ten yuan for his/her medical services.
The regional government began in 2003 to institute the free medical treatment system in Tibet's rural areas. By the end of 2008, the total funding for treatment for Tibet's farmers and herders came to 340 million yuan, with such funding hitting 140 yuan per person.
Meanwhile, the Autonomous Regional Government also encouraged rural people to raise funds on a voluntary base by themselves
The 46-year-old Cangju was involved in the project to raise ten yuan each year. Now she can have 8,000 yuan of medical treatment reimbursed. For those who have not raised funds by themselves, they can also have 6,000 yuan reimbursed.
"Now, I am not as worried about the fee for my medical services as I used to when I go and see a doctor," she said.
Source: Xinhuanet【1】 【2】
http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/6841162.pdf
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