Nation's health care reforms examined

United Nations Health Partners Group in China, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), working closely with the Ministry of Health, recently released their China country health assessment report in July 2005. International experts at the said group agree China has made huge progress in its health situation during the past half century, but they also call for major efforts from the government and the society to co-operate to take China's healthcare reform to the next level.

At the 14th CEO roundtable on August 26, 2005, themed "Healthcare Reforms in China" and organized by China Daily, about 50 CEO and senior executives from multinational companies, hospitals, NGOs, drugs and insurance companies got together for a strategic dialogue chaired by Professor Liu Yuanli, director, China Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health and Dr Henk Bekedam, China representative, WHO.

Flexibility, training recommended

I would like to point out at the outset that judging health sector performance is inherently a very difficult and complicated business. You cannot as easily say that a country's health sector has done extremely well or has totally failed, because one can use different performance criteria such as equity, efficiency, and quality, which can be defined and measured in different ways. There is no international consensus on what would be the best measurement to use.

Global business coalition on HIV/AIDS

China's health officials are currently faced with some of the country's most pressing and unprecedented issues regarding public health and social development. In this setting, the debate rages on about reforms of the nation's health care system.

The role of private sector in nation's health care reforms

Alexander Wan: What would you like to tell our readers?

Allan Gabor, Pfizer: Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company with strong global resources and capacities, and would like to build partnerships among the public, private, and patient health sectors to support health care reforms.

We believe that emphasizing prevention, wellness, early diagnosis and early treatment can keep disease from many personal health care disasters. Pfizer China has provided philanthropic patient education on disease awareness on many disease categories, such as cardiovascular disease, mental disease, infectious diseases, men's health, hepatitis B, and HIV/AIDS even though we don't have products right now for hepatitis B and HIV/AIDS in China. On average, there is savings of more than US$2 for every US$1 invested in early prevention programs.

Healthcare has to be accessible

Over the past month or so, health care reform in China has been the subject of much discussion and public debate in the wake of a report issued by the Development Research Centre (DRC) of the State Council with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UK Department of International Development.

The report takes a long, hard look at China's health care reform process - and candidly lists the challenges of the past, the present and the future.

Health care reform has been firmly on the government's agenda for some time now. The DRC study has elevated the discussion to a new level - and, at the same time, narrowed the debate to defining more clearly the role of the government when it comes to reinvesting in health. The question remains: how to do this? Where should government funding be focused? What should the levels of expenditure be? What are the mechanisms that need to be created and strengthened? How can these best be implemented?

Mr. Liu Yuanli
Director, China Initiative, Harvard School of Public Health

Dr Henk Bekedam, representative, China, World Health Organization (WHO)

Mr. Qu Yingpu
Editorial board member, China Daily