The WB/DFID China Rural Health Project Completion and Dissemination Conference was held in Beijing on November 19. Chen Xiaohong, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC); Yang Shaolin, director of the International Financial Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Finance; Bert Hofman, director-general of the China bureau of the World Bank; Chris Chalmers, director of the China office of the UK Department for International Development; and relevant people in charge of the departments of the NHFPC attended the conference.
The project aims at providing experience and a model for promoting rural health reform in areas with different development levels in China. The project has covered eight provinces and 40 counties; impoverished counties account for 60 percent of these counties.
Chen Xiaohong spoke highly of the project and expressed gratitude for the financial and intellectual support provided by the World Bank and the UK government. He said that the areas helped by the project have a more stable rural health service system. Rural basic medical care and health service has been improved greatly, and the project's expected goals have all been achieved. The project is an implementation of the "inviting in' and the "going out' strategies cooperated by China and international financial organizations. Although the project has been completed, Chen still hopes that China and the rest of the world can work together to improve Chinese rural health conditions.
Yang Shaolin pointed out in his speech that the China Rural Health Project has accumulated many experiences and innovative models in county-level hospital reform, medical payment system reform, the establishment of a quality medical service performance management system, the trial for project management incentive and exit mechanisms, and a result-oriented project management system. Such efforts will have great reference value in further health care reform, improving rural health service performance and pushing forward the equalization of public health service.
Bert Hofman praised the project's achievement. He said that to better cope with rapid population aging and the spread of chronic non-communicable diseases, the World Bank is cooperating with China in order to rebuild China's health service delivery system, further upgrading the equality and accessibility of health services for common people.
Chris Chalmers said the experience of the project not only benefits China, but also can be a lesson for other countries. China and the UK have reached a consensus in strengthening cooperation in global health, which will provide a reference for other countries to improve their health systems.
Experts and scholars from the Development Research Center of the State Council, Peking University, Fudan University and the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association attended the conference and gave their advice for the project.