Today's Prayer Request from Pray For China

The Government announced that the national university entrance examinations will continue as planned on June 7-10, despite the worry of SARS epidemic in many provinces. This has been the biggest uncertainty for millions of Chinese students. Let us pray for all the students who face the fierce competition to gain admission to higher education. Nearly all the incoming students have never heard of the Gospel, but in colleges, there might be a chance to be exposed to Christianity.

2:55:30 PM    pray []

SOME CHINESE HOSPITALS IGNORE ORDER TO TREAT SARS PATIENTS FOR FREE - RFA
Fleeing migrant workers spread disease to hometowns

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2003--Some Chinese hospitals are charging impoverished
migrant workers hundreds of dollars to treat their SARS symptoms, despite
orders from the central government to waive medical fees for those who can't
afford treatment for the deadly virus, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.

In one instance, a 21-year-old migrant worker fled the Xuanwu District
Huimin Hospital on May 2 after he was asked to pay 5,000 yuan (about $600
U.S.) for
doctors to treat him for SARS. While recovering from the virus, he fled the
hospital and returned by train to his hometown of Huazi Township, Liaoyang,
in Liaoning Province, according to several health officials in the
northeastern province who spoke on condition of anonymity. About 40 people
with whom the man is known to have been in contact, in and around his
hometown, were subsequently quarantined, they said.

"He was asked to pay 5,000 yuan after he was treated for SARS, so he ran
away from the hospital and returned home here," said one official. "SARS
treatment in Beijing is free for Beijing residents only, so he was asked to
pay."

It is impossible to know how many of China's tens of millions of migrant
workers may have encountered similar treatment and fled SARS-infected areas
such as Beijing and Guangzhou. But the prospect of legions of penniless
workers fanning out across the countryside, spreading SARS to an already
failing rural health-care system, poses a chilling spectre.

In fact, on May 1, four alarmed government ministries in Beijing--the
ministries of health, finance, labor and social security, and civil
affairs -- issued an urgent circular stating that patients presenting with
fevers should be examined without going through the normal registration
process. The circular also directed that patients diagnosed with SARS or
admitted with SARS-like symptoms should be treated regardless of their
ability to pay, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But health-care officials in Liaoning and Beijing, interviewed by RFA's
Mandarin service, said many hospitals had ignored the directive and were
still demanding hundreds of dollars to treat SARS patients who lacked any
means to pay their bills. One official complained that the directives were
difficult to follow because they failed to spell out who constitutes an
indigent patient.

One Beijing doctor, who asked to be identified only as Dr. Zhao of the Renhe
Hospital in the Daxing district of Beijing, said some hospitals are
requiring a deposit of several thousand yuan (several hundred dollars U.S.)
of patients who present with flu-like symptoms. "If they are treated for
SARS, that will cost them at least several thousand yuan," Dr. Zhao said.

"There is no such thing as free SARS treatment," said a Liaoning health-care
official. "There is no guarantee. Some migrant workers can be treated free
or charged a reduced amount. We do have some special policies in terms of
unemployed workers and migrant workers, but we did not promise free
treatment."

A Liaoning official charged with tracking and containing contagious diseases
said migrant workers were leaving Beijing in large numbers because SARS had
effectively halted construction projects in the Chinese capital. But he also
reported that those who were unwell feared going to Beijing hospitals
because they knew they couldn't afford treatment.

"In Liaoning Province alone, at least three migrant workers who were
infected with the virus fled from Beijing--and one of them has died," said a
Liaoning health-care official. In Chaoyang, in western Liaoning Province, he
said, "thousands of workers have come back from Beijing [since the virus
erupted]."

To what extent the expensive treatment in Beijing caused them to flee
remains unclear, but it was a contributing factor, the official said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned on May 7 of a serious SARS outbreak in the
Chinese provinces. More than 800,000 migrant workers have returned in recent
weeks to central Henan Province, and another million to neighboring Anhui
Province, according to Chinese media reports. Some 75 percent of an
estimated 290,000 migrant workers who returned to Henan in the first few
days of May, further, came from SARS-affected areas, the China News Service
reported.

SARS, which is believed to have first appeared in China's southern Guangdong
Province late last year, has sickened thousands of people and killed
hundreds in roughly 30 countries around the world.

Copyright © 1999, RFA. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. http://www.rfa.org.

2:45:25 PM    pray []