{"id":6306,"date":"2020-03-22T15:10:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T07:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/?p=6306"},"modified":"2020-03-22T15:10:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T07:10:31","slug":"what-chinas-public-health-system-has-learned-from-sars-and-covid-19-outbreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/what-chinas-public-health-system-has-learned-from-sars-and-covid-19-outbreaks.html","title":{"rendered":"What China&#8217;s Public Health System Has Learned From Sars And Covid-19 Outbreaks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"37c28470d9d6d3cb9ff74e663adb766a\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3594734025006597\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>In early 2003, when patients with fever, cough, and chest pain first appeared in the emergency room of United Family Hospital, doctors at the then Beijing&#8217;s largest private hospital knew nothing about how to deal with this mysterious disease. They asked the Chinese government, as well as the US Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Officials eventually named the disease &#8220;Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome&#8221; (SARS). In 2020, 17 years later, China has once again become a severely affected area of \u200b\u200bthe global epidemic of COVID-19.<br \/>\nRoberta Lipson, chief executive officer of United Family Hospital, said: &#8220;In terms of establishing a prevention system and raising public health awareness, SARS is a wake-up call to the government and the public.&#8221; This has promoted great progress in public hospitals in China. Data transparency has also improved significantly. &#8220;When COVID-19 struck, the government provided us excellent guidance from the beginning.&#8221;<br \/>\nCoping with the outbreak of COVID-19 is a typical example of China&#8217;s lessons learned from SARS. Despite initial denials, the government moved quickly to establish a quarantine area to control the spread of the virus. Authorities build care facilities at no cost. As we all know, a hospital with 1,000 beds was built in 10 days.<br \/>\nChina has undergone tremendous changes in the medical field. After China&#8217;s accession to the World Trade Organization, the economy has experienced explosive growth, and the increase in taxes has filled the state treasury. From 2003 to 2018 during the SARS outbreak, China&#8217;s public sector health care expenditure increased by nearly 14 times. The government can also provide national health insurance for its citizens. A six-year, 850 billion yuan plan that began in 2009 will eventually provide nearly 100% medical insurance for Chinese citizens. The WHO and World Bank&#8217;s March 2019 report, Healthy China: Deepening China&#8217;s Healthcare Reform, praises this achievement.<br \/>\nBenefits have gradually expanded, and the use of health services has increased, resulting in &#8220;the main cause of poverty among low-income people&#8221;-medical out-of-pocket costs have declined. As of 2018, the average life expectancy of the Chinese is 77 years, which has increased by 34 years since 1960. According to the report, it took twice as long for rich countries to achieve milestones in public health care.<br \/>\nHowever, the report also found that China&#8217;s healthcare system is too \u201chospital-centric, decentralized and quantity-oriented\u201d. Patients do not like to go to the general doctor&#8217;s clinic. Even if it is a common cold, stomach pain or headache, they must go to a large hospital for specialist treatment. The burden on hospitals is disproportionate, with 8% of the medical system serving more than half of the country&#8217;s patients.<br \/>\nThere are not enough doctors in China, with an average of 1.8 &#8220;general practitioners and specialists&#8221; per 1,000 people. According to the World Bank, this number is lower than 2.4 in the United States, 2.8 in the United Kingdom, 2.4 in Japan and 2.3 in Singapore. &#8220;China lacks community-based primary medical services. Now the Chinese government is trying to change this situation, such as requiring doctors at large hospitals to rotate to smaller hospitals and clinics. Help rural doctors improve their level and make medical resources more evenly distributed. &#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"chrome-extension:\/\/lmnganadkecefnhncokdlaohlkneihio\/enable.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"37c28470d9d6d3cb9ff74e663adb766a\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3594734025006597\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early 2003, when patients with fever, cough, and chest pain first appeared in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatchina.cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}