Qingzhen improves its rural education, medical services

Qingzhen city, a county-level city in Southwest China's Guizhou province, has rolled out a series of measures to increase improvements to its rural education and medical care services, according to local officials. 

Last year, Qingzhen invested 8.75 million yuan ($1.3 million) in living allowances for its impoverished students in basic education, subsidizing students for 15,401 times.

The city also invested 1.82 million yuan in education funds for students involved in targeted poverty alleviation, subsidizing 1,124 poor rural students. 

Meanwhile, the city fully implemented a nutrition improvement plan for rural students in the pre-school and basic education stages, with 45.17 million yuan of subsidies offered to students for 94,800 times. 

In the health and medical care sector, Qingzhen built 252 clinics in 181 villages last year, ensuring that each administrative village has one standard clinic and one qualified rural doctor and that basic medical services and basic public health services are covered in all administrative villages in Qingzhen. 

Qingzhen subsidized insurance funds of 1.32 million yuan in place in 2019 to achieve full coverage of basic medical insurance, critical illness insurance and medical assistance for poor people. 

In 2019, the hospitalization by poor people in the city reached 1,738, which resulted in medical expenses of 10.13 million yuan. 

Officials said that 8.4 million yuan of this was reimbursed through medical insurance, with a reimbursement ratio of 82.9 percent -- effectively reducing the burden on poor people of paying for medical services.

Che Weiwei contributed to this story.