Free for now

摘要

In tongzhou, a town near Beijing, one group of people appears to have reaped immediate benefits from official efforts to put a positive spin on healthcare reform. A group of kidney patients had pooled their meagre resources to buy their own second-hand dialysis equipment in order to avoid crippling hospital charges. In March the local government confiscated it. But sympathetic coverage from local newspapers has helped persuade officials not to leave the impoverished patients to the mercy of the health system. They are now enjoying free dialysis at the government's expense, something almost unheard of in China.rnOfficials had accused them of violating health regulations. Indeed, the grubby courtyard next to a rubbish tip down the dirt lane housing the equip-rnment does not inspire confidence. But one woman, who scrapes a living by selling sex aids and whose peasant family back in the northern province of Shanxi saves all it can to help her with her medical expenses, says dialysis in a hospital costs more than four times as much as their do-it-yourself method.rnThe government has told the patients it is trying to find a long-term "solution" to their problem. They fear this will eventually mean returning to their distant hometowns for treatment. The reforms aim to give patients greater freedom over where they can enjoy subsidised health care, but for now many can do so only in their places of official residence. The chances of free dialysis away from Tongzhou, some of them stoically accept, are zero.