China's ageing villages face yawning healthcare gap in fragile economy

DUAN, China, Jan 20 (Reuters) - David Wei had to carry his nephew on his back for 3 km (1.9 miles) after the younger man suffered a heart attack, staggering down a road being repaired in rural China, while an ambulance took 90 minutes to drive out from the city and save him.

By the time the nephew had his second cardiac arrest last year, at age 53, that section of the road to his village had been fixed, but a delay in calling the ambulance meant it could not arrive in time.

"If we'd lived in the city he might have had a chance," said 60-year-old Wei, sitting by a charcoal-burning brazier in his two-storey home in the mountains of Duan Yao county, in China's southern region of Guangxi.

His experience shows how challenging it can be to get medical care in some rural areas, a task that will only get more critical in coming years for ageing rural communities, where about 120 million people are already 60 or older.

China's development model is at a crossroads, say health and population experts, with a choice between much higher spending on pensions and healthcare or industrial upgrades and urbanisation, which Beijing sees as key to bolstering growth.

At a twice-a-decade meeting of the ruling Communist Party last year, Beijing promised to pursue both.

However, spending vast resources on rural healthcare was "not a good move" right now, a government adviser told Reuters.

"High-quality doctors are unwilling to live in rural areas and low-quality ones cannot provide good services. This is a structural problem," added the adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, as the topic is a sensitive one.

"The key is building townships, which is lagging behind."

China's National Health Commission, and the State Council Information Office, which handles media queries for the government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Critics say that for China to choose urban and industrial investment over welfare programmes for its low-income rural population would present it with long-term growth risks greater than the short-term gains.

It could exacerbate overcapacity in factories, weaken consumption, and worsen the demographic crisis by pushing people into cities, where they take on busy jobs and live in small, costly apartments, so they tend to have fewer children.

"When the prospect of economic development is in doubt, the Chinese government ... has consistently prioritised investment and growth over social spending and welfare," said Jundai Liu, an exp...
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