China: cobrança em hospital público

Depois da demonstração da nossa "superioridade" sobre o sistema americano na distribuição de insulina, abaixo reproduzo um resumo de reportagem publicada hoje com acesso livre no The Lancet (http://thelancet.com) que relata os protestos violentes contra cobrança de atendimento em hospital público, isso na República Popular da China, tida como "socialista", "comunista". If the Chinese mandarins now drawing up a major overhaul of their country's health-care system needed a reminder about the urgency of their task, it was provided in violent fashion at the end of last year with a hospital riot in the birthplace of Deng Xiaoping. About 2000 protesters went on the rampage in Guangan, Sichuan Province, in November after reports that a young boy was denied life-saving treatment because his guardians could not afford the £50 treatment fee. Although the facts of the case are disputed, it highlights the growing sense of public unease about a profit-orientated health-care system in which doctors are suspected of worrying more about payment than their patients' lives.