[Development of health service in Hunan Province]

To study the health service development in Hunan Province, and to find out the advantages and disadvantages, and to make tentative specific suggestions.

Comparison was made in Yunnan, Hunan, and Zhejiang Provinces in 4 major areas: health institutions, personnels, facilities, and funding.

The overall health service of Hunan Province was good: The health resources increased, the allocations were reasonable, and the health expenditure decreased. Some problems appeared, such as backward primary health, shortage of medical talents, inefficient use of hospital beds, deducted government investment, increased business income, and large urban-rural gap.

There is urgent need to further develop health institutions and increase personnels, particularly improving the primary health care and making use of traditional Chinese medicine; improving the management of hospital beds to increase efficiency, increasing financial support to reduce the patients' burden, and ensuring the need of rural health care.