Pandemic triggers reforms in China's healthcare

Only 10 community health centres in Wuhan were prepared to admit COVID-19 patients.

China’s government is expected to institute further reforms focused on access to high-quality healthcare and product innovation after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Bain report.

This situation shows close similarity to the state during the SARS epidemic, when the government quickly began overhauling the healthcare system to improve access to services and high-quality supplies. It invested in systems for disease surveillance and reporting, as well as epidemic prevention and control.

Centres for disease control were also built across the country, and public insurance programmes were expanded to provide affordable care for the rural population.

Since then, the transformation in the industry has moved towards focussing on efficiency and quality; however, the coronavirus outbreak exposed the remaining cracks in the nation’s healthcare system.

When the epidemic subsides, the government is tipped to double-down on improving the quality and availability of community health centres, particularly in small cities, given that only 10 in Wuhan were found to be prepared to admit and treat patients with coronavirus symptoms.

Hospitals are expected to increasingly outsource to private and third-party institutions, as highly specialised services will continue to see high demand..

Further, China is expected to speed up approvals of medicine and medical devices, following significant delays in operations faced by pharma and medtech companies, contract research organizations (CROs) and contract developing and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) outside of coronavirus-related developments.