The city of Changsha, Hunan province hosted a conference on healthcare reforms in Hunan, Hubei, and Guizhou provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang region, on Sept 7, with a vice-minister from the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Cui Li, chairing the meeting and explaining their healthcare reform needs.

Cui opened by saying, “The four areas have made improvements in their healthcare reform and the next step is four, further, reforms,” then went on to explain that the first concerns public hospitals, which need to cut drug prices, increase spending, and improve supervision and that all county hospitals must carry out the reforms by the end of October, and eight pilot cities must complete reforms by the end of December.

The second reform, Cui continued, is for local governments to improve universal medical insurance, payment methods and informatization, so that patients can be reimbursed inter-provincially for their medical expenses and critical illness insurance should cover all urban and rural people with basic medical insurance by the end of December.

The third thing is that there should be a drug purchasing site connected with the national site by the end of October in accordance with the State Council’s public hospital centralized drug purchasing guidelines,

Fourth is that local governments should improve medical services at county-level public hospitals.

Taking part in the conference were Li Youzhi, deputy governor of Hunan province and officials from the Commission ’s Healthcare Reform Dept.