Wasteland Border Inspector-Chapter 153 - 89: Medical Reform, Uncle Dong’s Letter!
The arrival of Jiang Chuan today just confirmed his judgment.
Thinking of this, he feigned relief, "Good thing the command center of the Inner City contacted me and provided enough information support for me to defeat that high-level infected body."
"Command center?"
Jiang Chuan was stunned again, this time very obviously, it took a full two seconds for him to snap back to reality.
Realizing Cheng Ye was staring at him, he quickly forced out a smile: "High-level infected bodies are not easy to deal with; Inspector Cheng, you’ve got quite the skills."
"I’ve only undergone formal training for three months; I can’t compare with experts like you."
Cheng Ye shook his head.
In this wasteland, strength and brains don’t necessarily equate, especially for those who’ve trained martial arts to the extreme, whose minds are often quite "simple."
Jiang Chuan, though somewhat stronger than Liu Bi, wasn’t overwhelmingly so.
Having understood his purpose, Cheng Ye simply rambled on, "Also, the command center thought I performed well, and Celestial Essence Community cooperated effectively, so they specially rewarded the community with twenty thousand contribution points for construction funds, which I’m supervising, to develop Zone B-7. You should have seen it when you passed by."
"I saw it."
Jiang Chuan nodded, not even realizing his voice carried a slight stutter.
"When you return to the checkpoint, don’t tell people randomly; I’m only telling you because we’re fated to know each other."
Cheng Ye grinned, then shifted the topic, "Actually, it’s not about respect; it’s that I can bring them benefits. Everyone only gets along through mutual benefit."
On the word ’mutual benefit,’ he slightly emphasized his tone.
Jiang Chuan was taken aback by this, a fleeting expression of understanding yet also confusion flashed across his face, but it quickly returned to calm as he just lightly nodded.
He wasn’t foolish; having followed Ding Yishan for so many years, he naturally understood the nuance in Cheng Ye’s words.
These clever people always hide their true intentions within their words for you to grasp.
If you can’t grasp it, it’s just the literal meaning, but if you do, it’s a completely different implication.
The rest of the journey was silent.
Cheng Ye gazed sideways at the fleeting streetscape outside the window, while Jiang Chuan repeatedly pondered over the afternoons’ events, contemplating how he should report to Ding Yishan.
Having arrived at the Buffer Zone for three months, there were many places he hadn’t set foot in.
The medical center was one of them.
The car hadn’t been driving out of the city for long when a cluster of buildings appeared not far away.
Three six-story buildings were encircled by mottled walls, with signs for "Outpatient," "Inpatient," and "Emergency" hanging on them.
On the side of the building closer to the outside, the peeling wall faintly revealed the old markings of the word ’hospital.’
"Was this a hospital before?"
Cheng Ye curiously inspected, finding it somewhat strange.
"Yes!" Jiang Chuan came back to his senses and explained, "Previously, the Buffer Zone didn’t have medical centers, just two hospitals, one called Happiness Hospital for internal services and the other called Lefu Hospital, facing residents. Later, due to low treatment efficiency, they were split and reorganized by the medical department into the current medical centers to make them compete with each other."
"But if there’s no charge and it only relies on grants from above, wouldn’t the efficiency only get lower and lower?"
"Hmm?" Jiang Chuan was puzzled for a moment, but eventually nodded, "That’s actually the case. Initially, the focus above was only on cure rates; as a result, when the medical centers found that the number of patients increased, the periodic cure rates would decline, so they began to deliberately extend the treatment cycle, releasing patients en masse when statistics were settled."
"Later, the indicators were changed, adding the number of patients, satisfaction scores, cost control, but this change led doctors to become weary due to heavy workload and low rewards, gradually resulting in perfunctory treatment and patient shuffling."
"Aren’t there plans to change this?"
"It’s been talked about for a long time. The intention from above is to set up three core medical stations and dozens or hundreds of mobile medical points, where core stations handle severe cases and mobile points deal with minor injuries and common diseases, screening severe patients to be sent over."
Jiang Chuan seemed not very hopeful about this setup.
"The core medical stations will continue the current free medical model, but the mobile medical points will switch to a parallel system of charge and free treatment."
He paused, explaining in more detail, "Simply put, medicine is free, but medical services are charged. Each mobile medical point has a fixed drug quota, and once the monthly allowance is used up, it’s gone. Meanwhile, the service fees received can be used to develop their medical points, including training newcomers, purchasing instruments, etc."
"There’s also a grading system based on patient satisfaction, cure rates, and similar indicators. High scores can upgrade the medical point’s level, the higher the level, the more drug quota they receive, and they can apply for more funding."
Competing medical points?
Upon hearing this, Cheng Ye immediately discerned the obvious downside of this model.
Although the core medical stations cover severe patients, only mild cases are left for medical points.
But among mild cases, there are differences too.
With charged treatments and limited drugs, wouldn’t it lead to medical points only willing to accept patients who are sure to be cured or those who can pay higher fees to earn more income and achieve higher scores?
"In addition, medical points need communities to claim them before they can be established. It’s unclear what exactly this new setup from above intends to achieve..."
"Claim?"
Cheng Ye was slightly taken aback, vaguely grasping the Idealist Faction’s reforms within the Buffer Zone.
From community management to this medical point claiming system, it all seems to be pushing the Buffer Zone towards a certain extreme.
However, this thread was not yet clear. As the car steadily stopped in front of the outpatient department, he temporarily stored it in his mind.
