As China develops its western regions, China should change its medical and health care policy to better serve farmers, the majority of the population in the west.

Spending money on western infrastructure has been constantly advocated for a long time, and it seems that only preferential policies for business people will alleviate poverty.

But investment in human resources is equally important.

The economic inferiority of the west not only stems from its harsh natural conditions and poor infrastructure, but also from the quality of human resources: Namely, education and health lag behind national averages.

The significance of education has been widely acknowledged, but public health care has yet to receive its due respect.

The Chinese Government has pledged to guarantee all farmers basic medical care this year.

To this end, the government should improve its medical services. It also must regulate the rural medical market, control surging drug prices and reallocate income to ease poor people's health care costs.

But government investment in public disease prevention has declined since the early 1980s. According to the World Bank, the proportion of the Chinese gross domestic product's disease-prevention expenditure has slid from 0.11 per cent to 0.04 per cent.

With less government financing, many western rural public health indices have not met State-prescribed minimal standards.

Most of the input has focused on infectious disease prevention. However, due to lifestyle and dietary changes and environmental deterioration, common diseases also include non-infectious ones such as cancer, respiratory diseases and cranial vascular diseases. Some people would end up in poverty if they contracted any of these diseases.

Because the government focuses mainly on infectious diseases, the incidence of these illnesses has risen. Meanwhile, money for health education and community health workers is far from sufficient.

Now that the market is playing a part in the medical industry, the problem is no longer a lack of drugs or medical services as before. Now the issues are cost, access and improper market regulation - resources are concentrated in cities, service rates are so low that doctors may break the law to make money and drug retailers keep raising prices.

In recent years China has made much progress in medical resources. The number of doctors per 1,000 people, for example, has increased 49.5 per cent.

Farmers, however, have benefited little from the progress.Statistics from 1998 show that 30 to 40 per cent of village clinics in the west have no sterilizing facilities.

And good doctors work mainly in cities. The medical workers who farmers usually turn to often lack professional training and cannot help their patients.

For seek better treatment for serious diseases, farmers must go to urban hospitals, paying extra money and risking delays in treatment.

So, again, to solve these problems as the west develops, the government should change its health care policies.

Countryside health care should receive priority attention, and the focus of medical work should be disease prevention and cutting costs.

Part of the expenditure should go to educate farmers about disease prevention and healthy living habits. And some should pay for fruit and other healthy foods for babies under 2 years old.

But the most urgent task is to increase funds for training rural medical workers and improving village clinics.

This money could also pay to send young health workers to refresher courses or buy necessary sterilizers for community clinics. And government offices should improve inspections of village clinic medical care records to guarantee that people benefit directly from the expenditures.

The author is a researcher with the Economic Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.