20. Research Report on Development of New Rural Cooperative Medical Service

This chapter shows the real features of the new rural cooperative medical service through empirical studies, and gives some policy proposals. The cooperative medical service was an important component of the rural medical security system during the early days of liberation. It not only provided general outpatient and hospitalization services for villagers, but it also carried out an expanded programme on immunization (EPI) for children, health care during the period of gestation and parturition, family planning, and endemic disease situation monitoring, which solved the major problems regarding peasants' health. This chapter discusses the distinction between the cooperative medical service and the past cooperative medical system. With the implementation of the new rural cooperative medical system, rural basic health facilities certainly improved, and hygienic work made certain progress. A new goal of the new rural cooperative medical system is to alleviate peasants' burden of medical services being too expensive to obtain. Keywords:expanded programme on immunization (EPI); health care; hospitalization services; new rural cooperative medical service; rural medical security system