China's total health expenditure kept increasing last year, while the ratio of individual health expense in total health expenditure actually decreased, the country's health authority said.

Total health expenditure and per capita health expenditure in 2008 were expected to reach 1.2 trillion yuan ($178.6 billion) and 915 yuan respectively, compared to 1.12 trillion yuan and 854.4 yuan in 2007, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a briefing of medical reform and development on its website on Monday.

However, it said the ratio of individual health expense in the total health expenditure last year was expected to drop, but added no further details.

MOH statistics shows that, in 2007, individual Chinese shouldered 45.2 percent of the country's total health expenditure, declining by 4.1 percent compared to 2006. The government and the society respectively shouldered 20.3 percent and 34.5 percent of the country's total health expenditure in 2007, increasing by 2.2 and 1.9 percent compared to 2006.

Experts said the declining ratio of individual health expense was inevitable.

Wu Ming, health policy and management professor at Peking University's School of Public Health, told China Daily yesterday: "The decline is because the healthcare insurance service coverage keeps expanding, and the government and the society have put more investment into the healthcare system."

"It shows the government's years of medical reform measures are beginning to take effect, which is good news for citizens who have been criticizing soaring medical fees, lack of access, poor doctor-patient relations and the low coverage of the healthcare system for years," she said.

She believes the trend of declining individual health costs will continue. However, 55-year-old Zhang Li from Taiyuan of Shanxi province said her family's medical expenses did not drop.

"We did not see a sharp decline of medical spending, but my relatives in the countryside said they did spend less after they joined the new rural cooperative medical scheme last year," she said.

Meanwhile, officials at the MOH briefing said the central government last year allocated 11.1 billion yuan of special investment for building the grassroots healthcare service system in rural areas and urban communities.

A total of 814 million people had joined the new rural cooperative as of last year, and 180 million joined the basic medical insurance system for urban working people as of 2007, officials said.

Last year's maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate were 34.2/100,000 and 14.9/1,000, respectively, a drop compared to 36.6/100,000 and 15.3/1,000 in 2007, they said.

(China Daily February 18, 2009)