“Queue for three hours. See a doctor for three minutes.” This Chinese internet quote encapsulates some of the difficulties involved in accessing healthcare services. But in reality, in China, the situation can be even more challenging.
For Wang, a 71-year old widower living alone in Wuzhen, a small rural town in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, it actually takes over five hours to meet a doctor given the time too spent commuting between his home and the hospital.
Worse still, he has to do it every day as a long-term diabetes patient, Wang has no choice. Literally, he spends nearly half of his time awake on accessing...
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