Medical Reform

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced recently that a study on human resources management is underway to cut officially funded posts at China’s vast number of public institutions, including universities and hospitals. In a pilot program, some hospitals in the city of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, have seen the number of posts that receive official funding slashed, following the model of the University of Hong Kong – Shenzhen Hospital. Unlike other hospitals that rely heavily on financial investment from the government, these hospitals are already self-financing and are responsible for their own profits and losses. The Shenzhen government has announced that all government-funded posts at newly established hospitals in the city will be abolished. Reducing the number of such posts and shrinking bureaucracy is an important step in medical reform, but it will take time to see if this can break new ground in China’s often-troubled hospital system.