Medical Care

The development of medical institutions, improvements in medical treatment skills, reforms of the medical system and renovations of medical services were indispensable components of the social undertakings designed to better serve the people.

During the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the municipal government invested 2 billion yuan (US$250 million) on renovation and expansion projects for the Friendship Hospital, Anzhen Hospital, the Children's Hospital, Xiaotangshan Hospital, Huilongguan Hospital, Beijing Red Cross Chaoyang Hospital, Beijing Institute of Paediatrics, Women and Children's Care Centre, Blood Centre and the Beijing Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the wake of the SARS outbreak in 2003, Beijing focused much more on the establishment of its public health care system. Ditan Hospital was relocated, the You'an Hospital was renovated, and more storeys were added to the Emergency Treatment Building of the Children's Hospital. In eight urban districts, 122 emergency treatment stations (spots) were established or are still under construction. In rural areas, 46 emergency treatment stations were established by the end of 2005. Smooth progress was reported in the establishment of 1,486 standardized, village-level medical institutions, the reception rooms for infectious diseases at 412 Class-I hospitals, the special outpatient rooms for contagious diseases at 140 Class-II and above hospitals and another 61 isolation and observation rooms for contagious disease treatment. The city's 717 community medical service centres and medical institutions above the township level were able to report directly to higher medical management institutions via the Internet in case of the outbreaks of any of 37 statutory diseases.

Investments on rural medical and health increased. From 2000 to 2004, such investments amounted to 28.04 million (US$3.51 million), 31.97 million (US$4 million), 50.76 million (US$6.35 million), 82.06 million (US$10.26 million) and 170.49 million yuan (US$21.31 million), increasing 14 percent, 58.2 percent, 61.6 percent and 107 percent.

The coverage rates of new-type rural cooperative medical policies were 100 percent at the county level, more than 87 percent at the township level and more than 90 percent at the village level, with a participation rate exceeding 70 percent.

At least 3,661 water-improvement projects were completed in rural areas, with 3.39 million total beneficiaries.

The first cluster of safe drinking water projects for 300,000 farmers that were carried out in 2005 were finished. By the end of November 2005, 569,600 toilets had been renovated in rural areas, accounting for 45.41 percent of all the toilets in the countryside.