August 16th, 2009
GEJIU, China — Xin Deming’s family has been decimated by AIDS and he is adamant the disease not ruin the life of his 10-year-old niece. Yet despite his best efforts, she is at the mercy of erratic treatment, massive social stigma and overwhelming uncertainty about the future.
In Xin’s family, three of four sons used heroin, turning to needles at the beginning of an AIDS epidemic that sprouted more than a decade ago near the Chinese border with Vietnam in Yunnan province. A growing drug problem and burgeoning sex-work industry on the drug trafficking route created a fertile environment for AIDS to spread in Gejiu, a tin-mining town of 300,000 people on China’s Red River. International agencies say Gejiu has more cases of AIDS and HIV infection than any other city in China.
In Xin’s family, two of three drug-addicted brothers died. Xin, 41, is off drugs and now works for a local non-governmental organization devoted to AIDS education. He is strong and outspoken, but at the mercy of a health care system plagued with problems. His niece, the orphaned daughter of his elder brother, must be protected, he insists, even if it means keeping her in the dark about her own health. She attends school in a rural area where the city health committee, prone to gossip and leaks of private information, is not privy to her health records.
“She told me she knows she’s different,” Xin said. “I asked what she meant, and she said, ‘I don’t know why, I just know I’m different from the other kids.’”
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090420/chinas-youngest-aids-victims-kept-the-dark
August 5th, 2009
Editor’s note: While the health care reform battle rages in Washington, D.C., China has been quietly revamping its own massive health care system — with decidely mixed results. In this three-part special report, Kathleen E. McLaughlin and photographer Sharron Lovell tracked the results on both urban and rural residents.
BEIJING — The price list at a top Beijing hospital explains a lot about what is wrong with China’s health care system: An appendectomy by a leading surgeon, available to any Chinese citizen, costs only $34.
This is not because the doctors or the equipment come cheap — Peking University People’s Hospital attracts the top medical talent in the country. It has the seventh highest-paid doctors in China and imports cutting edge technology from around the world. The low cost of surgery is not because the communist government makes up the funding gap between patient prices and the actual cost of care.
Instead, it is simply because the central government set a maximum hospital rate 20 years ago in an attempt to guarantee health care access to all citizens. It hasn’t allowed them to be raised since, despite China’s massive economic growth, increased personal income and rising inflation. In short, that $34 doesn’t cover much and the costs are made up in other ways.
Read the series at Global Post:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090728/rural-health-care
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090728/china-urban-health-care
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090804/china-health-care-reform
August 2nd, 2009
I recently recorded a podcast with the Asia Society, where there were some interesting questions about how China is handling ethnic relations in the aftermath of the Xinjiang riots. Namely: What is China doing to educate the larger population about Uighurs and other ethnicities? You can listen to or download the podcast here: http://podcast.com/episode/41434160/98575/
August 2nd, 2009
I’m finally updating this sadly neglected site, and having an interesting look back at what I’ve worked on over the past year. More to come…
