Farmers and shepherds in Qinghai Province may be exempt from childbirth expenses.

As one of the first beneficiaries, Zhoema, a herder's wife in Guinan County of the Northwest China's Qinghai Province, paid 50 yuan (US$6) last year to be registered to the healthcare program.

When she gave birth at a local hospital in Senduo Village last week, her family paid virtually nothing for midwifery, medicine and basic vaccination.

"We couldn't have afforded childbirth at a hospital, if not for the healthcare program," said Zhoema. "Even a normal delivery costs about 200 yuan (US$24), which is more than 10 percent of our annual earnings."

With financial problems and little access to medical facilities, childbirth remains a life-and-death challenge for farming and herding women in some outlying areas in the northwestern province.

"Most herders' wives opt to give birth at home, and two out of 10 newborn babies died before the healthcare program became available in September 2003," said He Minglu, a doctor with the hospital in Senduo Village of Guinan County.

The county was one of the first eight selected by the provincial government to test the program.

The move has encouraged more women to go to hospital to give birth this year. The program covers almost all the expenses in a normal child birth and part of the expenses in case of a Cesarean section.

In Guinan alone, the mortality rates of pregnant women and newborns have dropped by 46 percent and 40 percent, according to statistics provided by the county's health bureau.

In Gangcha County in the northeastern part of the province, 82 percent of expectant mothers now prefer to give birth at hospitals.

"The efforts have proven effective in relieving the herders' burden and ensuring the security of women and their babies," said Li Xiuzhong, an official with the Qinghai Provincial Health Bureau. He said his province was the first in China to provide free midwifery services for women in need.

(China Daily November 2, 2004)