China suicide bus bombing wounds 31

By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) – A 42-year-old farmer with terminal lung
cancer set off a home-made bomb aboard a bus in southeastern
China on Monday in a suicide attack that wounded 31, the
official Xinhua news agency said.

Xinhua did not give a motive for the attack in central
Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, but it followed criticisms
by senior health officials of health care costs that have risen
beyond the means of many in rural areas.

The bomb was strong enough to blow out the windows of
nearby stores, Xinhua said.

Pictures seen by Reuters showed rescue workers carrying
victims on stretchers. One woman had deep cuts on her face,
legs and abdomen, with part of her intestines spilling out. An
unconscious man had black burns on his bloodied legs.

Xinhua did not identify the farmer.

Police declined to comment, but a local resident reached by
telephone told Reuters that a woman who got off shortly before
the explosion said she saw a man board the bus carrying a
plastic container emitting smoke.

Bombings by social malcontents are common in China, where
explosives are relatively easy to obtain, but most go
unreported in the tightly-controlled state media.

UNSUCCESSFUL MEDICAL REFORM

Vice health minister Zhu Qingsheng said last December that
about 50 percent of farmers could not afford to seek medical
treatment when sick.

Last week, Health Minister Gao Qiang accused greedy
hospitals of charging exorbitant fees and prescribing
unnecessary and expensive medication, while the cabinet has
called efforts to reform the medical system “basically
unsuccessful.”

In the late 1970s, 94 percent of China’s villages were
covered by cooperative medical schemes. As the collectives were
disassembled during the market reforms of the 1980s, coverage
rates fell to around seven percent.

The government has tried a variety of stop-gap insurance
experiments, but many have faltered or failed due to fragmented
bureaucracy, spotty regulation and funding shortfalls.

Today’s medical care sector is composed of a confusing
assortment of hospitals run by all levels of government,
military and the private sector. In many rural areas, badly
understaffed and under-supplied clinics offer the only health
care.

Despite receiving fewer patients each year, revenues at
Chinese hospitals jumped 70 percent between 2000 and 2003,
according to state media.

The rise in the cost of health care has surpassed salary
growth for the past eight years and many rural residents and
those who migrate to cities looking for higher-paying jobs
still have no medical insurance.

(Additional reporting by Vivi Lin)