Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu has acknowledged that there is a huge gap between the quality of healthcare offered in urban and rural areas, both in terms of outcome for patients and access to services.

And he said the gap likely will not be closed in the next 30 years.

Huang was speaking at Friday's launch of two major reports in the Chinese language - the 2008 World Health Report on Primary Health Care and Closing the Gap in a Generation. The event was co-hosted by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The reports are aimed at helping WHO member countries fill existing healthcare gaps in the next three decades.

When asked whether China will be able to close the gap between healthcare in urban and rural areas, Huang told China Daily: "Inspired by our own experiences and lessons and guided by the reports, China is now correcting mistakes and striving to make sure everyone in the country has equal access to basic healthcare services."

In 1965, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered a shift in the focus of China's healthcare services to rural areas, said Huang. However, nearly half a century later, the quality of rural healthcare still lags behind.

Official statistics show more than 85 percent of the nation's quality healthcare resources, in terms of talent and equipment, is concentrated in cities.

Rural residents account for 56 percent of China's 1.3 billion people but, in the past, many have not had health insurance. In an attempt to address that problem, the government allocated more than 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) in March for a new round of health reforms, pledging to cover at least 90 percent of the entire population with basic health insurance by 2011.

In 2003, the central government introduced the new rural cooperative medical plan, which authorities said could protect more than 95 percent of rural people from the huge cost of treating major diseases.

However, critics say the plan has problems, including the fact that outpatient care is not covered, which can cause poor farmers to delay treatment. Around 70 percent of farmers who leave their communities in search of better paid jobs in the cities do not land contracts that include the refunding of medical costs.

"I hope the WHO reports can help China address these problems by improving the equity," said WHO's representative in China, Hans Troedsson.

Health equity is a matter of life and death, added Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general. If not tackled, the impact of the inequity could extend beyond the health sector and upset social stability.

(China Daily August 15, 2009)