Medical reform calls for efforts and wisdom

With a view to providing residents with easier access to cheaper and higher quality medical services, the State Council, China's cabinet, released a document on Sunday on furthering reform of State-owned hospitals, which is expected to lift their heavy reliance on profits from the sale of medicines.

The prospects are encouraging, and the central authorities definitely mean it. But the reform will enter a "heavily-fortified zone", as called by President Xi Jinping.

As is the case in other areas, the pattern of entrenched interests in the healthcare field has congealed in the past decades. The sales of medicines make up a large proportion of a hospital's revenue and guarantee the incomes of medical workers. Doctors have their own way of making extra income by prescribing medicines from the pharmaceutical companies recommended by medicine representatives. Tacit rules have been established for the business between hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and even between hospitals and the government department in charge of them.