Lack of doctors in China hampers reform
08-Oct-14, China Daily
Up-and-coming private hospitals in China's overburdened public healthcare system are trying to cure a shortage of doctors, which could dent the country's reform drive just as private investors are getting interested.
Part of the shortage problem is that, across most of China, doctors need permission from the State-owned hospitals where they are employed before they can accept work in the private sector.
And many public hospitals don't want to let their best doctors go. So they dig in their heels.
"Some government-owned hospitals are hampering doctors somewhat from going outside," said Charles Elcan, president of Chinaco Healthcare Corp, whose 500-bed hospital in Cixi, Zhejiang province, admitted its first patient in July. "Some are very much open and support it, and some of them don't," he said. "It's an ongoing challenge."
The Cixi hospital, a joint venture with the local government, is operating at just a fifth of its capacity for inpatients and is looking to recruit more doctors.