Many people might raise their eyebrows at Professor Ba Denian's warning that China stands 188th in the global ranking of fairness of distribution of public health resources.

Quoting World Health Organization statistics, Professor Ba of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences yesterday told a gathering of the country's finest scientists in Beijing that only three countries rank below ours on the fairness scale.

There's always debate about the authenticity of such rankings as well as their statistical basis, and it's highly probable China should rank higher on the list.

The sheer size of our territory compounds the difficulty of correctly compiling all the numbers, and except for a handful of true insiders, most of us have little knowledge whether or not the WHO got accurate statistics. It's thus reasonable to reserve some suspicions.

But Professor Ba's warning should not be ignored because of concerns about statistical accuracy. His revelation underlines a major challenge facing our nation.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, only 15 per cent of Chinese nationals enjoy medical guarantees. The other 85 per cent either have no guarantees at all or "unreliable" guarantees.

Despite the recent emergence of the urban poor, who may also suffer from inadequate medical guarantees, the problem is much more serious in China's vast rural areas.

Though rural regions account for an absolute majority in terms of both area and population, almost all government investment programmes are concentrated in the cities. While some urban hospitals boast the most up-to-date equipment, technologies and well-trained staff, many of those in rural townships are operating under primitive conditions on a tight budget. The situation is even worse at medical service facilities at the village level, if they exist at all.

It's no longer news that illness is a major cause of poverty in the countryside. The authorities have been promising to bridge the rural-urban gaps. Unless realistic efforts are made to address the huge discrepancy between cities and the countryside in the distribution of medical resources, those promises will prove very hard to honour.

A little more financial input would make an enormous difference in the countryside.

(China Daily November 28, 2003)