China Turnkey model hospitals
To make up for the shortcomings of its hospital facilities, the Chinese government is now encouraging the establishment of foreign hospitals. To be accepted, these facilities will have to offer state-of-the-art technology and medical equipment, as well as hospital management concepts of the highest international standard. In this way, they will serve as benchmarks and models for domestic structures. Given China's mistrust of foreign presence, this is still only a pilot operation, as these hospitals can only be set up in the nine most international Chinese cities.
To make up for the shortcomings of its hospital facilities, the Chinese government is now encouraging the establishment of foreign hospitals. To be accepted, these facilities will have to offer state-of-the-art technology and medical equipment, as well as hospital management concepts of the highest international standard. In this way, they will become benchmarks and models for domestic structures. Given China's mistrust of foreign presence, this is still only a pilot operation, as these hospitals can only be set up in China's nine most international cities.
FACTS
A notice published on the Shanghai municipal government website details the action plan that makes it possible to set up and operate foreign hospitals. It specifies which investors will be eligible and the operational requirements that will be imposed.
These hospitals will be allowed to set up in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, Lingang Special Zone, Hongqiao International Business District and Oriental Hub International Business Cooperation Zone1.
CHALLENGES
Aware of the inadequacies of its hospital system, Beijing has adopted the same strategy that enabled it to seize the industrial know-how it lacked abroad, and is opening its doors to the best international healthcare groups. By capillary action, they will enable Beijing to modernize and profoundly transform its hospital structures. Make no mistake about it, the results will be slow in coming, and the country's healthcare system has been set a medium-term target of 2035.
FORWARD-LOOKING COMMENTS
Shanghai is only the first community to implement the pilot program that makes it possible, or rather, encourages the opening of entirely foreign hospitals in China. A text published jointly in the closing days of November 2024 by China's National Health Commission, Ministry of Commerce, State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine
The world's best platforms are expected. To be accepted, they will have to offer state-of-the-art technologies and medical equipment, hospital management concepts and service models of the highest international standard.
To ensure the most advanced practices, Chinese laws now allow foreign companies to implement advanced treatments using stem cells and genetic technologies, thus promoting the medicine of tomorrow.
Not everything will be permitted, however, and we can detect a hint of ideology or mistrust when these hospitals are excluded from medical fields deemed sensitive: hematology, organ transplants, assisted reproduction techniques, and more generally, any activity, diagnosis or treatment presenting ethical risks. The creation of psychiatric hospitals, hospitals for infectious diseases and traditional Chinese medicine are also rejected. Finally, and not surprisingly, any establishment focusing on ethnic minorities2.
The framework is there, but the opening up of the hospital system to foreigners is described as a pilot operation. This is reflected in the criteria used to select the regions and, more specifically, the cities where foreign hospitals will be allowed to set up: only in the metropolises of the provinces most open to the outside world, i.e. Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hainan
The reluctance of the profession
These foreign inroads are naturally a source of concern and probably of rejection within the profession. We can't perceive them directly, as Chinese society doesn't allow it, but they do show through in the excess of justifications that flourish in the authorized media accessible on the Web.
They reassure us that foreign-funded hospitals will not have a major impact on China's medical system in the short term, as it will take three to five years from approval to opening, and even longer for a hospital to find its place in its environment. Healthcare infrastructures will have all the time they need to observe, learn and prepare for change.
In the words of Lei Haichao, Director of the National Health Commission: "Against the backdrop of growing demand for medical services, all parties expect the arrival of foreign-funded hospitals to exert a "catfish effect" leading Chinese players to turn new medical concepts, advanced treatments and more flexible management mechanisms for the benefit of patients."
A journalist from the Yangcheng Evening News, who was able to gather the positive expectations of a number of hospitals, summed up their feelings as follows: "As competition in the medical market has increased, we will be able to acquire advanced management experience to promote the development of the industry as a whole. Of course, it's a good thing to be able to obtain world-class medical services."
For their part, the world's leading hospital groups are delighted with the opportunities that are opening up for them. Raffles Medical Group is one of Asia's leading providers of integrated private healthcare, and currently operates three hospitals in Shanghai, Beijing and Chongqing. Kenneth Chung, General Manager of the Shanghai hospital, told the Global Times: "The new policy is encouraging, and we continue to look for other high-quality projects in China"3.
To what has just been reported, a codicil. There is no Chinese structural program that does not include Taiwan, and in this program for the renewal of the hospital system, Taiwanese investors are welcome. Business magazine Fortune is here to remind us that the June 2010 Framework Agreement on Economic Cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait includes the clause that "Taiwanese capital can establish wholly-owned hospitals in Hainan, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai on a mainland basis."
Edouard Valensi, Asie21
- Shanghai tries out foreign-funded hospitals, a move to boost healthcare sector opening-up, Global Times, 08/01/2025
- China allows wholly foreign-owned hospitals in major cities, Xinhua French, 30/11/2024
- GT staff reporters, Shanghai tries out foreign-funded hospitals, a move to boost healthcare sector opening-up, Global Times, 08/01/2025
