Organizing Rural Health Care

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapportBidrag til bog/antologiForskningfagfællebedømt

The liberalization of health care in the course of three decades of ‘reform and opening up’ has given people in rural China access to a diverse range of treatment options, but the health care system has also been marred by accusations of price hikes, fake pharmaceuticals, and medical malpractice. This chapter offers an ethnographic description of health as an issue in a Hebei township and it focuses on a popular and a statist response to the perceived inadequacy of the rural health care system. The revival of religious practices in rural China is obviously motivated by many factors, but in the township in question, various forms of healing play a significant role in religious movements and the rising cost of medical services as well as a general distrust of formal medical institutions seem to be part of the reason why people choose to follow spirit mediums and religious movements that offer alternative roads to healing. The recent introduction of new rural cooperative medicine in the township represents an attempt to bring the state back in and address popular concern with the cost and quality of health care. While superficially reminiscent of the traditional socialist system, this new state attempt to organize rural health care is more regulatory and distanced in its emphasis on nudging patients and doctors towards the right decisions through economic incentives. This bureaucratic approach to organizing health individually offers a sharp contrast to the religious collectivities that form around health issues.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelOrganizing Rural China - Rural China Organizing
RedaktørerAne Bislev, Stig Thøgersen
ForlagLexington Books
Publikationsdato5 apr. 2012
Sider139-154
Kapitel9
StatusUdgivet - 5 apr. 2012
NavnChallenges Facing Chinese Political Development

ID: 33457778