CRI听力: Beijing's Private Hospitals Seek High-end and Migrant Patients

With China's healthcare reform under heated discussion, some people are eyeing private hospitals for solutions.

A top health official says the city government sets no limitations on the development of private hospitals. It aims to lessen the burdens on their public counterparts and push them to gradually outsource most of the primary care and luxury services to the private sector.

Our Ning Yan reports.

Expatriates who go to some private hospitals in Beijing can get medical advice in their mother language, swipe their own country's insurance card and, if necessary, get flown home on an emergency airplane.

Deng Xiaohong, spokeswoman for the municipal health bureau, says private hospitals have been expanding their business since they first appeared in China in the 1980s.

"They perform quite well. Every year we have a number of registered foreign dentists, gynecologists and physicians who work for them."

Statistics show that as of last year, the percentage of private hospitals in Beijing had risen from about 15 percent to over 40 percent during a seven-year period.

But Deng Xiaohong from the city health bureau says the number, size and market shares of private hospitals still doesn't meet demand.

"Most of them are small clinics and can only perform very limited surgeries."

Only seven, or about 3 percent, of private hospitals in the city are medium- or large-sized.

In the meantime, thousands of patients pour into the capital every day for the very limited beds and skilled doctors in large state-run hospitals.

Deng Xiaohong says Beijing needs more private specialists to ease the pressure, and non-governmental hospitals are encouraged to offer luxury medical services.

"Private hospitals do better in focusing on two patients group – the high-income ones who want nice wards and top experts, and the low-income ones who usually don't have medical insurance."

Deng Xiaohong points out that this is an important part of China's ongoing healthcare reform, which aims to make public healthcare more affordable and convenient.

"In a country that is less developed but has a huge population, like China, public hospitals will keep dominating the market for a long time. What we are doing is to encourage them to outsource their high-profile services that do not quite fit with their 'public' status to private hospitals."(www.hXen.com)

China now adopts a hybrid healthcare system on the basis of employment insurance, but the system has been haunted for over two decades by soaring healthcare bills and crowded hospitals.

The authorities have recently chosen 16 cities to pilot a reform plan that aims to boost primary care while reversing public hospitals' over-reliance on sales of prescription drugs.

Ning Yan, CRI news.