TY - CHAP

T1 - Organizing Rural Health Care

AU - Bunkenborg, Mikkel

PY - 2012/4/5

Y1 - 2012/4/5

N2 - The liberalization of health care in the course of three decades of ‘reform and opening up’ has given people in rural China access to a diverse range of treatment options, but the health care system has also been marred by accusations of price hikes, fake pharmaceuticals, and medical malpractice. This chapter offers an ethnographic description of health as an issue in a Hebei township and it focuses on a popular and a statist response to the perceived inadequacy of the rural health care system. The revival of religious practices in rural China is obviously motivated by many factors, but in the township in question, various forms of healing play a significant role in religious movements and the rising cost of medical services as well as a general distrust of formal medical institutions seem to be part of the reason why people choose to follow spirit mediums and religious movements that offer alternative roads to healing. The recent introduction of new rural cooperative medicine in the township represents an attempt to bring the state back in and address popular concern with the cost and quality of health care. While superficially reminiscent of the traditional socialist system, this new state attempt to organize rural health care is more regulatory and distanced in its emphasis on nudging patients and doctors towards the right decisions through economic incentives. This bureaucratic approach to organizing health individually offers a sharp contrast to the religious collectivities that form around health issues.

AB - The liberalization of health care in the course of three decades of ‘reform and opening up’ has given people in rural China access to a diverse range of treatment options, but the health care system has also been marred by accusations of price hikes, fake pharmaceuticals, and medical malpractice. This chapter offers an ethnographic description of health as an issue in a Hebei township and it focuses on a popular and a statist response to the perceived inadequacy of the rural health care system. The revival of religious practices in rural China is obviously motivated by many factors, but in the township in question, various forms of healing play a significant role in religious movements and the rising cost of medical services as well as a general distrust of formal medical institutions seem to be part of the reason why people choose to follow spirit mediums and religious movements that offer alternative roads to healing. The recent introduction of new rural cooperative medicine in the township represents an attempt to bring the state back in and address popular concern with the cost and quality of health care. While superficially reminiscent of the traditional socialist system, this new state attempt to organize rural health care is more regulatory and distanced in its emphasis on nudging patients and doctors towards the right decisions through economic incentives. This bureaucratic approach to organizing health individually offers a sharp contrast to the religious collectivities that form around health issues.

M3 - Book chapter

T3 - Challenges Facing Chinese Political Development

SP - 139

EP - 154

BT - Organizing Rural China - Rural China Organizing

A2 - Bislev, Ane

A2 - Thøgersen, Stig

PB - Lexington Books

ER -