China will establish a unified national system on the production, procurement and distribution of essential medicines in order to benefit ordinary people, according to the national health work conference held in Beijing Monday.

Health Minister Gao Qiang said at the meeting that China will frame an essential medicine catalog following different criteria, namely safety, effectiveness, need and cheapness. It will also gradually standardize the titles and prices of the same products across the country to ensure the supply of essential medicines and lower medicinal prices. To achieve this, the government will regulate the production and circulation of medicines, and tighten control on the market entry of both pharmaceutical manufacturers and their products.

Gao further highlighted the construction of a nationwide basic medical and health system, aiming to provide multi-tiered medical care and public health services.

According to him, public health institutions such as centers for disease control and prevention, rural clinics and hospitals, and urban community hospitals will be funded by the government to provide all residents with free public health service and low-priced primary medical service.

Medical insurance system will also be improved to help those with severe illnesses get timely medical treatment, Gao added.

On hospital management, Gao said that hospitals will be classified into profit-making and non-profit-making ones in the future and different policies will be adopted toward them to maintain the latter's nature as a public welfare undertaking. Moreover, the Ministry of Health will regulate public hospitals' income and expense management to prevent blind enlargement of scales, increasing income and pursuing profits at all costs. 

In the rural area, the plan for 2007 is to expand the coverage of the cooperative medical service system to cover 80 percent of China's counties, thus benefiting more poor farmers.

(China.org.cn by Li Shen, January 10, 2007)