Cancer, a real threat to China's economic survival
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Xiao Caiyu, a 52-year-old mother has cervical cancer. Until she was diagnosed a few months ago, she ran with her husband a small pork business that allowed them to squirrel away a nest egg of more than 30,000 yuan (US$ 5,000). However, in the absence of an adequate public health care system, her family, now deeply in debt, closed the business, their savings gone.
Her story, reported by Bloomberg, like that of millions of Chinese, is one where disease, and lack of government support, leads to financial ruin. In today's China, cancer has become a major threat to Asia's largest economy.
With an aging population, widespread environmental pollution and rapid changes in lifestyle, cancer has become a major problem for hundreds of millions of people.
Every year, an estimated 3.07 million new cancer cases are recorded in the People's Republic, this according to the World Health Organisation's cancer agency. That translates into a diagnosis every ten seconds and 2.2 million cancer deaths each year.
Unless something is done to reverse current trends, cancer could cost China about US$ 5.6 trillion in lost output from 2012 to 2030, a group of researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and other institutions estimated.
Cancer costs are a financial burden on anyone, no matter where they live; in China, however, they are particularly heavy. Because of the country's fast-paced economic development, the cancer rate has increased exponentially, overwhelming the existing health care system's capacity to deal with the problem.
At the same, drug companies have raised their prices to reap greater profits.
Private insurance is not widespread since, on paper at least, the government is required to provide free medical care to its citizens. However, this does not really apply to cancer, because of inadequate government medical and health facilities.
For most Chinese, health care costs fall on families. With cancer affecting especially older adults in a country where the government's one-child policy has reduced the number of young adults since the late 1970s, the financial burden has fallen on their single, working-age children.
Until now, Xiao has managed to stave off her cancer. To do so, she spent her family's savings and has had to take on debt that they have to repay. However, "If the cancer gets worse I won't get treatment," she said. "There's no money."
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19/11/2004
