In the evening, the inspection group invited villagers and local medical staff to a meeting in a yard in front of a villager’s house. They listened carefully to the villagers’ introduction about the change in the village and their suggestions for the primary care and family planning service.

Ten kilometers away from the county town, Jiajialiang village has about 586 households. Recently the environment of the village has been greatly improved since the local government improved the water system and lavatories, and employed sanitation workers to clean the streets.

Apart from the better environment, the improvement in the primary medical care system was also highly praised. By 2014, all the residents in Jiajialiang village were covered by the new rural cooperative medical care system, and the maximum compensation of the hospitalization expenses reached 28,900 yuan ($4,635). The villagers said that their economic burden was greatly relieved thanks to the new system. The preferential policy of family planning and the policy to allow a couple to have a second child if one of them comes from a one-child family were also praised by residents. This year, 23 people in the village enjoyed rewards for family planning, and 12 couples received pre-pregnancy physical examinations for free.

Some local medical staff revealed the problems of medicine distribution and primary medical team construction. Liu Qingquan, president of Daxing township hospital, said that sometimes medicine was not distributed timely in the village. Jia Peineng, a 69-year-old rural doctor, expected that the rural endowment insurance system could be improved and more young people could work to improve local health.

At the meeting, Li asked questions and took notes. She pointed out that in recent years, rural resident living standards and health greatly improved due to patriotic public health campaign and environmental improvement. Since medical reform was launched, significant breakthroughs in the construction and improvement of the basic medical care system have been made, bringing many benefits to local people. These results showed that the policy was supported by residents. However, the government also needed to tackle some problems, especially the shortage of good rural medical staff. Li promised to consider and solve these problems by deepening the medical reform. She also encouraged the local government and medical institutions to find new ways.

This year is crucial for the reform of the county-level public hospital

On May 12, the inspection group inspected Tongjiang People’s Hospital and Tongjiang Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. They also listened to reports on the reform of public hospitals at the provincial level and county level including Tongjiang, Nanjiang and Pingchang.

Chen Wenhua, deputy governor of Sichuan, said that since October 1, 2013, all the 367 county-level public hospitals in Sichuan canceled drug price additions, bringing benefits of 750 million yuan to patients by March this year. After the reform, the average expenses at the clinic dropped by 0.81 percent and the average hospitalization expenses dropped by 6.38 percent. The number of outpatients increased 6.79 percent, and inpatients number rose by 6.59 percent.

Li emphasized the reform of county-level public hospitals. This April, the second pilot project of 700 county-level public hospitals was launched. To succeed, the local government should conform to the suggestions on further reform of county-level public hospitals; focus on constructing a scientific medical system; ensure necessary investment; and coordinate the development of healthcare, health insurance and medicine. She also proposed a combination of central government guidance and local government initiative, encouraging the local institutions to innovate, draw on experience and improve guidance. The government should always give priority to people’s interests and take people’s satisfaction and support as the only criterion to evaluate results.