Full Text: Equality, Development and Sharing: Progress of Women's Cause in 70 Years Since New China's Founding
VI. Women's Health Condition Has Improved Dramatically
Health of women and children is the cornerstone of the health of all people. China attaches great importance to the development of maternal and child health care, incorporates the protection of women's and children's health into the national strategy, and constantly improves the system of laws and policies on maternal and child health. China has established a three-tier network of maternal and child health services, covering urban and rural areas. China vigorously implements maternal and child health projects, providing full life-cycle health services for women and constantly improving the fairness and equalization of maternal and child health services. As a result, women's health has significantly improved.
The system of laws, regulations and policies on maternal and child health has been continuously improved. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, maternal and child health was actively promoted as an important part of health care. Over the past four decades since the reform and opening up, China has promulgated and implemented laws and regulations on maternal and child health, including the Law of the People's Republic of China on Maternal and Infant Health Care. China has incorporated maternal and child health into its overall economic and social development plan. Many national plans, including the Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Outline of the Healthy China 2030, the Program for the Development of Chinese Women and the Program for the Development of Chinese Children, all set out specific targets and measures for maternal and child health, incorporate core indicators of maternal and child health into the target assessment of governments at all levels, and strengthen the primary responsibilities of the government.
A network of maternal and child health services with Chinese characteristics has been improved. China is committed to strengthening the construction of maternal and child health institutions. Since 1950, a network of maternal and child health services with Chinese characteristics has been gradually established in urban and rural areas, with maternity and child care institutions as the core, community-level health care institutions as the foundation, and large and medium-sized medical institutions and relevant research and teaching institutions as the support. Over the past four decades since the reform and opening up, China has continued to increase input in the community-level network of maternal and child health care and improve the service system. China has built an annual reporting system as well as the largest monitoring network in the world on maternal and child health. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the network of maternal and child health care has been gradually embedded into the medical security network covering 1.4 billion people and the three-tier medical care network covering urban and rural areas. The IT construction of maternal and child health has been strengthened. In 2018, there were 3,080 maternal and child care institutions, 807 maternity hospitals and nearly 640,000 maternal and child care workers throughout the country. The World Health Organization lists China as one of the 10 countries with high performance in maternal and child health.
Maternal and child health services have become more equitable and accessible. New China attaches great importance to the safety of mothers and infants, actively popularizing new methods of delivering babies, and preventing and controlling serious diseases that endanger women's physical and mental health. Over the past four decades since the launch of reform and opening up, China has actively promoted pre-marital medical examination, provided comprehensive pregnancy health care services and popularized hospital childbirths. China has also improved postpartum health care services, strengthened the systematic management of pregnant and lying-in women, and gradually established systematic and standardized management systems and service models for pregnant and lying-in women, effectively protecting their health. Since 2000, major public health services for women and children have been implemented to reduce maternal mortality and eliminate neonatal tetanus. The state has subsidized hospital childbirths for rural pregnant women and carried out major projects on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis B. China has also launched the program of free cervical and breast cancer screening for rural women, providing free pre-pregnancy health check-ups. Since 2009, China has implemented the national program for basic public health services, increasing the per capita subsidy from 15 yuan in 2009 to 55 yuan in 2018, and providing 14 types of free basic public health services, including maternal health management. In 2018, the national hospital birth rate increased to 99.9%. By the end of 2018, the program of free cervical and breast cancer screening for rural women has provided free cervical cancer screening for more than 85 million women and free breast cancer screening for 20 million women. The system of women's federations alone has helped 102,200 women having financial difficulties.
Reproductive health services for women have been further strengthened. China has enacted relevant laws, policies, and plans to improve women's reproductive health. In the 1990s, China launched people-oriented services for family planning, promoted informed choice of contraceptive methods and protected women's rights and interests of reproductive health. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has adjusted and improved its family planning policy and strengthened the quality of family planning services. In 2016, the 13th Five-Year Plan on Health Development was released to implement basic programs of free technical services for family planning, popularize the knowledge of contraception, healthy childbirth and child rearing, and reproductive health, improve the accessibility and convenience of pharmaceutical services, enhance reproductive technical guidance services, and lift the level of reproductive health. In 2018, China issued the Maternal and Child Safety Action Plan and the Codes of Contraceptive Services after Induced Abortion to implement five major actions consisting of lowering pregnancy risk, treating severe diseases, improving quality and safety, empowering specialist capacity, and providing convenient and high-quality services for women. The country offers free pre-pregnancy health services including health education and health examination to rural couples who plan for pregnancy. China has launched pilot programs to ensure equal access to family planning and other basic public services by women in the migrant population, and has provided maternal health services for women in the migrant population.
Women's health has further improved. Women's average life expectancy grew to 79.4 years in 2015, an increase of 10.1 years over 1981 and 42.7 years over 1949 when New China was founded. The maternal mortality rate has fallen 79.4% from 88.8 per 100,000 in 1990 to 18.3 per 100,000 in 2018 (see Chart 5), meaning that China has achieved the United Nations Millennium Development Goals ahead of time. The gap between urban and rural areas has been further narrowed: the ratio of urban to rural maternal mortality decreased from 1:2.2 in 1990 to 1:1.3 in 2018.
