The still unknown woman was found in Jiangsu province. Pictures of her have sparked outrage and triggered a fierce debate. Medical care, drugs and access to health facilities are too expensive and distant for the rural population.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – An unknown elderly woman died in hospital after she was found, lying abandoned for several days in a field in Pizhou County. Pictures of her were posted on pzzx.com (pictured), sparking outrage.

According to preliminary reports, the victim was left in a field because she was seriously ill and she or whoever was responsible for her could not afford the cost of medical care.

The dying woman was found lying on the ground wrapped in dirty quilts in a field in eastern Jiangsu province. Police have taken some blood samples to be matched against anything in the national database to find her relatives.

Pictures of her were quickly shared on the internet, with many saddened that nobody was caring for her. “Even if her family abandoned her, what about the local government?” one wrote.

The central point of the story is medical care, or rather the lack of access to it for a huge chunk of China’s population. In this respect, horror stories abound.

In May 2014, a farmer in Anhui was forced to have both feet amputated because he could not afford the drugs needed to cure his illness. Worse still in 2013, a man from Hebei cut off his own right leg and left foot because of a massive arterial embolism that he could not afford to have operated.

Back in 2005, Beijing had recognised the "failure" of the country’s medical system and had announced a comprehensive reform. However, even today only a minority of Chinese enjoy free health care, including civil servants.

Hundreds of millions of peasants and workers are not among the happy few; they have to pay for each medical service. The net result is that many of these hundreds of millions of people end up neglecting their own health, or are forced to sell everything or get into debt when someone in the family has a serious illness.

With the best hospitals in the cities, rural residents often have to travel hundreds of kilometres to be examined or treated by the best specialists.

According to figures from China’s Ministry of Health, at least 80 per cent of farmers die without ever seeing a doctor, because of the costs of visits and treatments.

In 2008, the authorities did announce reforms, but they have not yet been implemented. The latter are meant to provide equal access to basic health care in both cities and countryside, including services like emergency medical treatment as well as check-ups, prevention, mother and child care, and vaccination.

• china
• medical
• care
• poverty
• dead
• woman