China Struggles to Provide Basic Health Care to Rural Residents (1/2)

Between the 1949 Communist revolution and the transition to a market economy in the 1990's China made big strides in bringing health care to rural areas. The government hastily trained medics, known as barefoot" class="hjdict" word="barefoot" target=_blank>barefoot doctors, to provide basic care to peasants.

In the past two decades, however,the government has closed public health care facilities and the rural poor have been faced with high fees for what little care is available to them.

The government spends 80 percent of its health budget on the cities, leaving only 20 percent for rural areas where most of China's people live.

Jim Murray works with Plan International, a children's advocacy group based in Britain which has operated in China since 1995. He says good quality health services are not accessible" class="hjdict" word="accessible" target=_blank>accessible to rural residents.

"At the village level, as many of you know, in the 1960s and 70s, the heraldedbarefoot doctors. Well, their sons and grandsons today are still there, yet they do not have the same degree of effectiveness, we find, that their fathers and grandfathers have ."