A hard-hitting State Development Research Centre report on China’s ailing public health system appears set to “elevate debate over health care to a new level” according to a spokesperson from the Word Health Organisation office in Beijing.
Over the last decade, international agencies and Chinese researchers have published forthright criticisms of the erosion of public health services, but this is the first, comprehensive critique to emanate from a leading Chinese government policy unit. The report, which was two years in the preparation, was co-financed by WHO and the UK Department for International Development, but carried out by the Development Research Centre, the lead think-tank under China’s State Council.