More than 95 percent of China’s population are covered by a state medical insurance plan. However, only a small proportion have access to high quality healthcare.
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Following the vicious attack on a 28-year-old nurse at a Nanjing hospital last month, healthcare workers in that city discuss what needs to be done.
After more than two months of protest, about 150 healthcare workers at the Guangzhou Chinese Medicine University Hospital have accepted a compensation offer from their employer of 20,000 yuan each.
Han Dongfang talks to a family of healthcare professional’s whose demands for pension arrears resulted in nine years of petitioning, detention in a black jail, and eventually incarceration in a psychiatric hospital.
Around 60 healthcare workers have been protesting on the steps of the Guangzhou Chinese Medicine University Hospital for 47 days now demanding social insurance contributions that are about a dozen years in arrears. Photograph of protesting hospital workers taken from Weibo.
Workplace safety is a major issue in China’s hospitals but the vast majority of collective protests by medical staff are triggered by wage arrears, the failure of employers to pay social insurance contributions and bonuses, or arbitrary changes in employment status.
The over-concentration of high-quality medical services in China’s big cities means that hospital staff in major urban centres are stretched to the limit while those in under-utilised small city clinics are struggling to get paid.
At least five of the hospital security guards sentenced by a Guangzhou court today to prison terms of up to nine months vowed to appeal their sentences. Several others are still considering their options.
Nurses in at least eight hospitals across China have gone out on strike in the last six months over low pay and benefits and demands for equal pay for equal work. Photo: Huaibei Today
Community doctors and teachers in China’s poor rural counties have been pushed to the limit and are now taking collective action to defend their rights.