As for effective antiviral medicine like Paxlovid, which is widely available throughout the West, Dong says he has never heard of it. He does, however, have two oximeters for testing patients’ blood oxygen levels, which he proudly shows off.
Of the 1,136 people who live in Gongjiahe, half had the virus and 90 per cent survived, Dong estimates. It is not unimaginable that many died in their homes without him knowing, he adds. But it could have been a different story if the village was better resourced.
People ‘don’t trust’ health centres
Over the years, there has been “no effort to fix the root causes” of poor healthcare access and provision in China’s countryside, says Professor Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Healthcare spending has gradually increased, rising from four per cent in 1990 to more than seven per cent in 2020, while all Chinese citizens now have their basic medical needs covered by insurance.
But the quality of this care remains inadequate in parts of the country and, out in rural China, the number of village clinics offering health services has reduced by almost 20 per cent over the past 30 years, according to official government data.
“People don’t trust the [rural] health centres,” Prof Huang says. “They prefer to go to county level hospitals. But then often either they themselves or their children don’t want them to go. They find it too costly or feel like it’s not needed anymore after a certain age.”