Beijing Women's Federation

It is a strategic mission with a great impact on the future of the Chinese nation to implement the policies of gender equality and promote the healthy growth of children. The Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Beijing Municipal People's Government are committed to protecting the lawful rights and interests of women and children and promoting their all-round development. The municipal government released a plan for women and children's development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) that puts the protection of their lawful rights and interests and the promotion of their comprehensive development on the top of the agenda of social economic development. The Beijing Municipal Working Committee on Children and Women invites some experts to interpret the plan in terms of major concerns and topics in society.

The following interpretation is made by Han Lili, a physician and deputy director of the Healthcare Department of Beijing Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital.

The health of the Chinese nation depends on the health of women and children. The Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPC and the Beijing Municipal People's Government have firmly adhered to the people-centered development philosophy, promoted the protection of women and children's health in a multi-tiered and three-dimensional approach, and made noticeable achievements in the improvement of their health over the past years. The average life expectancy of women in Beijing reached the level of high-income countries and its maternal and infant mortality approached the level of developed countries during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). Meanwhile, the city saw a continuous decrease in the occurrence of severe birth defects and effectively controlled women and children's common ailments in the same period.

The year 2021 was the start of China's 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) and marked the centenary of the CPC. Beijing released its plan for women and children's development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period on December 15, 2021, aiming to set a high institutional standard for improving health service for women and children and to embark on a new journey towards high-quality development of women and children's health.

• Stick to the people-centered development approach and give priority to maternal and child health

The plan focuses on the safety of women and gives priority to children. It stresses the prevention and reduction of diseases specific to women and children and the promotion of family happiness as well as social harmony, laying a solid foundation for the building of Beijing into a word-class harmonious and pleasant living environment.

• Beijing will provide local pregnant and lying-in women with whole-process basic medicare service, and comprehensively improve the warning networks for them, in an effort to cover prevention, early warning and emergency response to safety risks, and consolidate the building of traceable services for those exposed to high-risk factors in terms of screening, transfer, treatment and follow-up visits. It will conduct scientific analyses and assessment of major factors for the birth of high-risk infants, provide them with scientific intervention and comprehensive treatment plans, facilitate the building of neonatology department in local maternal and child healthcare hospitals, sub-regional medical centers and midwifery institutes, and promote the formation of a fast response system with concerted efforts by the departments of health, transportation, healthcare security and finance in the rescue and treatment of pregnant and lying-in women and newborns in critical conditions.
• Beijing will give priority to the development of children's affairs and promote the building of a child-friendly city. The city will put in place a system of inter-agency cooperation on the comprehensive prevention and treatment of birth defects and children's illness in different stages. It will advance the building of an international center for children's healthcare and medical treatment, facilitate the construction of maternal- and infant-friendly hospitals and residential communities featuring multi-layer early development services for children, strengthen the screening of hearing, vision and other physical impairments, mental diseases and autism, and improve the working mechanism connected with screening, diagnosis, rehabilitation and assistance. Equal efforts will be made to bolster the capabilities of nurseries, kindergartens and schools in the prevention of diseases and to consolidate the public service network for children in the fields of mental health education, counseling, assessment and treatment, crisis intervention and psychological aid.
• Local departments of health, education and the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China will work together to implement a campaign promoting the health of children. Efforts will be made to effectively reduce the occurrence of myopia and obesity among children, monitor the changes of major health indicators during their growth, and provide them with professional guidance on nutritional health. In addition, the city will improve its public service network for children in the fields of mental health, counseling, assessment and diagnosis, intervention and psychological assistance, consolidate the reproductive health education network for children, and raise their awareness of safety.
• Beijing will strengthen the prevention and treatment of common diseases for women. It will enhance public awareness and the capabilities of professional institutes in the prevention and treatment of cervical and breast cancers, expand the coverage of medical screening for the "two cancers," improve screening approaches, set up an evaluation system and deepen the connection between the screening and treatment of the "two cancers." Various publicity and educational activities will be held to help local women learn more about mental health. Women patients with menopause-linked chronic ailments will be provided with comprehensive and cross-disciplinary health services, to consist of prevention, counseling, guidance, screening and treatment.

II. Hold a systematic approach to improve health governance mechanism

The plan puts the health of women and children at the top of the agenda, incorporates the protection of women and newborns' health into all other policies, upholds a development approach friendly to women and children, and promotes the high-quality development of their health under the framework of the new development philosophy.

• Sticking to high standards, Beijing will attach great importance to the popularization of healthy lifestyles, the optimization of the allocation of healthcare resources, improvement of the healthcare system and building of a health-oriented environment. It will also further consolidate the building of a working mechanism for the protection of women and children's health, which will feature a leading role played by the government, coordination between government departments, participation of social resources, supervision and technological support, in a drive to ensure the health of women and children and accelerate the building of a world-class harmonious living environment.
• Beijing will strengthen the institutional building of healthcare for women and children and align the construction of maternal and child healthcare institutes with high standards. It will comprehensively adopt performance-based assessment and service feedback schemes in maternal and child healthcare institutes, stress the utilization of results gained from performance appraisals in improving their future work, guarantee the operation of maternal and child healthcare institutes with financial support from local government, and deepen the reform in the income distribution system. It will establish a dynamic regulatory mechanism to supervise the fluctuation of the price of maternal and child health services, work on the inclusion of critical and rare illnesses, and newly emergent health service programs in the insurance reimbursement list, and improve healthcare assistance mechanisms.
• Beijing will adopt a special plan to foster high-caliber and versatile talents in the field of maternal and child healthcare to include those who enjoy an international reputation in relevant academic disciplines. It will create an early warning and management system for talented personnel, cultivate professional practitioners in maternal and child healthcare, regulate training courses and assessment system, enhance the practical and clinical competence and skills of service providers, and modernize the supply capacity for maternal and child healthcare.
• Beijing will support local maternal and child healthcare hospitals, comprehensive hospitals, primary-level medical institutes and centers for disease control and prevention to become a sub-regional health and medical hub for women and children so that the public can enjoy interconnected, convenient, efficient and qualified health services. It will consolidate cross-disciplinary resources in the development of maternal and fetal medicine, deepen the cooperation between obstetrics and pediatrics, and build a fast-response team to provide rescue and treatment service to women and newborns in critical conditions. It will found a service and caring platform featuring cross-department cooperation and social participation and roll out a working mechanism as well as service mode to eliminate the mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis B.

III. Stick to demand-oriented approach and work for balanced, qualified and efficient services

The plan aims to meet the demand of women and children for a better life, improve the patterns of full life-cycle health services, make maternal and child health services more equitable and accessible, and provide high-quality and convenient healthcare services.

1. Beijing will adopt an experimental maternal and child health services paradigm to facilitate medical treatment, medical checks-up and bill payment in a functional zone and reduce the waiting time of patients. It will provide 24-hour online and offline maternal and child health services in diverse patterns, organize women's federations, departments of sports and civil affairs and social organizations to extend a wide range of services such as body building, nutritional diet and mental health to women and children, and support advanced technologies and quality services in multiple aspects of maternal and child health in a drive to meet the diversified and customized demand of the public.

2. Beijing will promote the coordinated development between TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) hospitals and the medical institutes for maternal and child health. It will improve the building of departments of gynecology, obstetrics and pediatrics in TCM hospitals, create a coordination mechanism between TCM hospitals and children’s hospitals, advance the construction of national-level TCM centers for children, and support the building of clinical offices associated with representative gynecological and pediatric TCM doctors. It will also deepen the incorporation of the TCM into maternal and child health services in an institutional manner, popularize disease prevention and treatment technologies, and enhance the level of maternal and child health service with TCM techniques.

3. Beijing will make intensified efforts to raise the level of maternal and child health services in grassroots medical institutes, aiming to provide quality health services, counseling and guidance to women and children. It will create a family doctor liaison system, expand its coverage in key groups such as pregnant and lying-in women and children, give full play to the roles of family doctors in safeguarding the health of women and children, and promote agreement-based family doctor services with emphases on women and children's common ailments and chronic diseases in order to build a convenient service network for maternal and child health.

IV. Stick to the guidance of mission and promote innovation-driven development

The plan firmly abides by the original aspiration and mission of safeguarding maternal and child health, takes a creative approach to enrich the content of maternal and child healthcare, and strengthens the integration of innovation with policies in a bid to comprehensively advance the health of women and children and promote all aspects of social development.

1. Beijing will fully utilize cloud technology to provide one-stop "Internet plus maternal and child health" public services, which will cover public service, quality management, warning and supervision and telemedicine for maternal and child health, and set up online maternal and child health records in the whole lifecycle. New technologies such as big data, cloud computing, block chain, artificial intelligence, 5G and the internet of things will be adopted to monitor the real-time health indicators of pregnant and lying women and children via sensors and smart wearables, drawing an intelligent picture of their health information; and will issue early warnings about and track the health conditions of women and children, achieve early warnings of potential risks faced by pregnant women along with the monitoring and assessment of the health of newborns and infants in critical condition, provide online guidance during medical intervention, and help departments of transportation and health share their information for coordinated emergency response.

2. Beijing will work closely with research institutes to conduct epidemiological investigation of diseases specifically for women and children, support multi-center clinical research and technical application, promote the application of clinical trial results and the utilization of conventional technologies in clinical trials, and carry out high-quality evidence-based medical research. The city will deepen its cooperation with education-oriented hospitals in terms of course arrangement and assessment and examination systems. It will also utilize remote learning to promote maternal and child medical knowledge updating and technological innovation, and foster talents with practical skills in maternal and child health so as to meet public demand in the city and even the whole country.

3. Beijing will organize popularization activities in multiple forms, strengthen people’s sense of responsibility for their own health, and enhance the health literacy of women and children. It will set up maternal and child health camps and experimental bases for medicine and public education to help the public learn more about full life-circle health and public medical programs. It will launch health salons providing scientific knowledge about raising children, mental health, fitness building, medical examination and self-evaluation to further enhance the enthusiasm and creativity of the public in the development of maternal and child healthcare.

Standing at a new historical starting point, Beijing will continue to promote the innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development of local maternal and child health services, advance balanced, high-quality and efficient maternal and child health services, and move ahead for becoming a world center for maternal and child health development.