YEAR 7 ISSUE 6

On April 7th, 2009, China unveiled its blueprint for healthcare for the next decade, kicking off the much-anticipated reform to bring the defective healthcare system back to the right track and to ensure accessible, affordable and equitable health services for over 1.3 billion citizens by 2020. According to current government reports, a three-year plan (2009-2011) has been pushed forward step by step thus far and some milestones have almost achieved. However, Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) [former Ministry of Health (MOH)] gradually recognized that the unbalanced development of Human Resources for Health (HRH) be-tween urban and rural areas has become a big barrier towards reaching the set reform goals: The upgraded health facilities in rural areas are lacking a number of high-quality health professionals to practice. The latest national health statistics report released by NHFPC shows that underdeveloped areas have not only lower densities of health workers, but also less-educated workforce.