China’s current medical system is established with the foundation of New People’s Republic of China and establishment of planned economic system.
Since the reform and opening up, people’s living standard has been improved rapidly and the requirement on medical care has been growing rapidly.
As a result, some demands which had been oppressed before have been released. However, the medical service system has been damaged seriously in the culture revolution.
Meanwhile, the medical system is still under government control. Medical institutions are lack of vigor with low efficiency. Medical service supply fails to meet people’s demand. In the recent years, under the efforts by the government of various levels, substantive achievement has been made in the aspects of establishing hospitals via various channels, transferring inner operation mechanism and raising the enthusiasm of medical personnel. Scale of the medical industry has been expanded rapidly. Improvements have been made in the medical institution condition, technology quality and hospital equipment. Problems of people’s difficulty in seeing a doctor and living in the hospital have been solved, which plays an active role for securing people healthy, maintaining social stability, reform & opening up and economic development.
However, with the continuous development of China’s economy, together with the quickening-up the pace of China’s reform and opening up, especially after China’s entry into WTO, malpractices of the medical industry have become increasingly obvious.
Currently, China’s medical reform is in the key stage and the medical service system reform, medicine circulation, price reform and medical insurance system reform are developed towards the deep level.