Due to the increasingly widening income gap between the rural and urban residents, the health conditions in rural and urban areas is becoming more and more imbalanced. The peasant's health conditions are not optimistic, sources from the seminar on China's medical service say.

The proportion of per capita expense of urban resident to per capita income of rural residents has grown from 1.94: 1 in 1985 to 3.3: 1 in 2002. Some major health indexes in rural areas have indicated that the improvement of health conditions has slowed down notably or even ceased some areas. The situation has kept on worsening in rural areas. The health level in urban area has neared that of the developed countries, with the average life expectancy exceeding 73 years old. While in less developed regions, the health level is only same as the underdeveloped countries.

The result of surveillance of the female and children's health conditions shows that death rate of the newborns, of infants, of kids under 5-year-old, and of pregnant women vary greatly in urban and rural areas since 1990s. In 2001, the above four indexes in rural areas are 2.3 times higher than that of the urban area. Occurrence rate of children's low weight and stunt are 4.6 times and 7.1 times higher than urban areas. In impoverished areas, more than 60 percent of children haven't received health check-ups; over 50 percent of pregnant women haven't been given maternity checks; 90 percent of them deliver baby at home; and more than 60 percent of midwives haven't received any official training.

The seminar is cosponsored by the Ministry of Health, WHO, and UK Department for International Development. Around one hundred experts have in-depth discussion on problems that emerged in the 3rd survey on medical service of China.

By People's Daily Online