Abstract
The imbalance in the allocation in healthcare resources between urban and rural areas has become a main focus of the recent medical reforms adopted in China. However, systematic analysis has identified wide differences in the allocation of healthcare resources between urban and rural areas, including healthcare expenditures and the number of healthcare facilities, available beds, and personnel. Therefore, the aim of this report was to identify ethical considerations in current governmental policies to rectify existing problems in the distribution of healthcare resources. Our findings indicate that the inequality in the distribution of healthcare resources does not adhere to ethical standards and the policies are flawed because they give rise to differences in the availability of medical care to urban and rural communities. To optimize the allocation of medical healthcare resources, countermeasures are proposed to formulate policies to urge the flow of public healthcare resources to rural areas, strengthen the responsibilities of both governmental and public financial investments, increase the construction of public healthcare facilities in rural areas, promote the quality of healthcare resources, adjust resource allocations to rural public healthcare facilities, and improve resource utilization efficiency by establishing two-way referral mechanisms.
Highlights
Financial, material, and human resources are the foundation of the healthcare services provided by the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China to ensure the accessibility of quality healthcare services
How to allocate healthcare resources is an economic issue constrained by the level of economic development, and embodies certain ethical issues
For rural residents, limited economic resources [4,19], limited availability and accessibility to healthcare services [19,20,21], cultural and personal values, overlapping professional–patient relationships and caregiver stress [4,7,22,23,24,25], as well as geographical and climate factors affecting travel have been identified as the main barriers to access of healthcare services [4,7,22]
Summary
Material, and human resources are the foundation of the healthcare services provided by the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China to ensure the accessibility of quality healthcare services. How to allocate healthcare resources is an economic issue constrained by the level of economic development, and embodies certain ethical issues. The distribution of financial, material, and human resources should meet the requirements of contemporary medical ethics as such decisions directly impact the future direction of development of the national health care system, promotion of medical science technology, and methods to monitor the general health of the population. Appropriate healthcare standards and meeting ethical considerations of rural populations have emerged as key concerns in the national discussion on disparities in the availability of healthcare services [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. The launch of new reforms has opened a new stage of healthcare mandates
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