A Page One story from the Wall Street Journal (photo from Ynet.com, Dr. Hu treating his patients):
Dr. Hu Weimin has attracted a wide following among the poor in this city by providing free advice on how to avoid high blood pressure and dispensing cheap drugs to treat the condition, one of the biggest killers in China.
His efforts have won him national recognition, and he counsels thousands of patients via the Internet. But Dr. Hu’s public health message has turned him into an outcast at his hospital. Fellow physicians shun him, and administrators bar him from the wards.
China’s socialist government once nursed the health of almost everybody. Then, starting in the early 1980s, it launched a privatization program that reversed course. Private spending accounted for 64% of all health-care expenditure in China in 2004, compared with 55% in the U.S. and 14% in Britain. But in China, almost all private spending is out-of-pocket: Private insurance coverage is negligible. [Full Text, subscribers only]
– Also Beijing Youth Daily online’s Doctor Alleges Hospital Corruption (English)
