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Maternity
and Child Care
Since the founding of New China,
the government has paid special attention to the medical and health
care of women and children. Legislative and supervisory bodies to
ensure women’s and children’s legal rights and interests have been
established at the NPC and the CPPCC. Women and children’s work
committees have also been established by the State Council and local
governments. By the end of 1998, China had 2,724 maternity and child-care
organizations, including 1,507 county-level ones, with a total of
73,000 medical technicians. A maternity and child-care network has
been formed in both urban and rural areas.
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China
takes the lead in infant heart surgery in Asia. This is an operating
room at the Research Center for Infant Heart Surgery of the PLA
No. 106 Hospital.
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To ensure
the health of women, the state has formulated the Law for Protecting
Women’s Rights and Interests, Law on Maternity and Child Care, Labor
Protection Regulations for Female Workers and Staff, and Provisional
Regulations for the Health Care of Female Workers and Staff. New
measures have been adopted for the health care of pregnant women
and for safe child delivery to protect the safety of mothers and
babies. A health-care program for pregnant women has been promoted,
i.e. setting up a file at the beginning of pregnancy, regular examinations
before delivery, nursing for endangered pregnant women, hospital
delivery and post-natal visit. All these measures have greatly improved
the quality of maternity and child care, resulting in a remarkable
drop in mortality for pregnant women from the pre-Liberation15 per
thousand to the present 0.619 per thousand.
Since the reform and
opening policies were introduced at the end of 1978, the Chinese government
has attached special attention to children’s welfare. The Program
for the Development of Children in China in the 1990s and the Law
on the Protection of Minors were formulated, providing a better environment
for children to grow up, be protected and develop. At the same time,
the Program for the Promotion of Breast Feeding was also formulated
and the baby-friendly action was launched on a large scale. China
has built 5,890 baby-friendly hospitals, and child mortality has dropped
to 31 per thousand, from 200 per thousand before Liberation. Since
the implementation of planned immunization for children in 1978, the
development level and nourishment situation of Chinese children have
kept improving. |
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