To help rural residents access more medical resources, Laiwu, a well-off city in Shandong, recently embarked on rural medical reform and introduced a cooperation system among city hospitals and township clinics.

Under the cooperation system, the city hospitals share their advanced medical equipment, professionals and management methods with the clinics and take a cut of the their profit.

Since last October, the Yangli township clinic has been working with the Laicheng People's Hospital, with the hospital investing more than 700,000 yuan on facilities for the clinic and sending medical professionals to help in the project. Under their profit allocation agreement, the hospital stands to get 20 percent from the Yangli clinic's revenue.

"It is a win-win business for both the hospital and the clinic," Kang Xibao, the Laicheng People's Hospital director, told China Daily.

"The clinic has doubled its business in the past 10 months and the hospital is expecting to earn more than 400,000 yuan from the clinic by the end of this year," Kang said.

To date, 19 township clinics in Laiwu have formed similar cooperation arrangements with the hospitals in the city.

Encouraged by the success of the scheme, local authorities also decided to expand the project to village clinics that are said to urgently require medical personnel and equipment. The township clinics are encouraged to take over the village clinics in order to improve the grassroots medical units.

The Yangli township clinic has taken over all the 39 village clinics in the town, hiring medical school graduates to work in the villages, upgrading the facilities and consolidating the management system. The village doctors say they now enjoy decent salaries and endowment insurance. All of them have earned qualifications to work at the village clinics.

"Our clinic is much more modern now," said Lu Shiju, a veteran barefoot doctor from the Yifeng village clinic who has received the requisite qualification to treat patients. "We have seven doctors on a 24-hour shift. We also have a computer and can access the Internet, so we can keep the patients' medical information in the database."

(China Daily December 4, 2008)