The registration fee of 1,000 yuan(125 U.S.dollars) at Shangdi Clinic of the No. 3 Hospital of Beijing University is almost a monthly income of her husband, and the charge is incredible for Xing, who is in her seventh month of pregnancy.

The newly-opened Shangdi Hospital in Haidian district in western Beijing is the first one geared to low-income residents and migrant workers in the national capital.

The registration fee is only 0.5 yuan(about 0.06 U.S.dollars),and the charge for a smooth delivery is only 1,000 yuan(125 U.S.dollars) there, much cheaper than in the city's other hospitals.

"It's too costly for me to give birth in other hospitals which would charge at least some 3,000 yuan(375 U.S.dollars)," said Xing, who came to ask about the delivery charge the day when the hospital opened.

The unbelievable, high-charged clinic, which claims to cater for Beijing's high-end customers, is just 3,000 km away, where the minimum yearly membership is 13,800 yuan and the top-class membership, which gives well-tailored private doctor service, costs 98,000 yuan a year.

The low-cost hospital is part of the country's endeavor to improve its much-grumbled medical system, which has been driven by economic interests for nearly two decades and is losing its public service character.

Though China reports substantial increase in the numbers of hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses and medical appliances since are form was started in the 1980s, the corresponding rise of charge made hospitals devoid of low-income people.

Minister of Health Gao Qiang noted earlier this year that China's outpatient and hospitalization expenses rose 13 percent and 11 percent respectively in the last eight years, much higher than the increase of residents' per-capita income.

To make matters worse, the former medical expense cooperation mechanism, which had once covered most rural residents, vanished with the decline of rural collective economy. And most city dwellers lost the privilege to have their medical expense covered by enterprises or state finance, while a broad umbrella of medicalinsurance is yet to be established.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health says 44.8 percent of the country's urban population and 79.1 percent of rural residents are not covered by any forms of medical insurance. About half the population does not go to hospitals in case of ailment.

Other statistics are even more alarming. According to a survey done by the China Youth Daily in August, 90 percent of the respondents said they are disgruntled with the current medical system. Another survey report released by the Horizon Key Research Company this week said that medical care with housing and education tops the list of the major problems that Chinese people are concerned with in 2005.

Discontent was fueled by the exposure of a bill scandal in Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province, this winter. Weng Wenhui, 74, was treated for 67 days at a Harbin hospital before dying of cancer on Aug. 6, but the failed treatment left his family a 5.5 million yuan(some 680,000 US dollars) bill.

And Weng's case was not alone. Just eight days before Shangdi Hospital opened, Wang Jianmin, a farmer peasant from Heilongjiang to seek a job in Beijing, was left dead at the hallway of the Tongren Hospital due to his lack of money for treatment.

The two scandals, once disclosed, were taken as a shame to humanitarianism, a credo that was once inscribed on the walls of nearly all of the Chinese hospitals, igniting fierce media and public response on the flawed health care system.

Public discontent and worry also send the government a wake-up call, which sees the accessibility of medical service as a necessary bedrock of the development of a harmonious society.

In October, central authorities pledged in an outlined 11th Five-Year development program, a blueprint for China's economic and scientific development in the 2006-2010 period, to work hard to provide affordable medical care to all people.

Gao Qiang re-underscored early this month that the purpose of medical institutions is to"serve the people" rather than"making money", which is regarded by critics as an indication that the government is getting tougher with reining back profit-hungry hospitals.

In fact, Hubei Province in central China, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces in east China, and some other provinces started trials of low-cost hospitals before Beijing set up Shangdi Hospital.

And the trial is likely to spread to elsewhere in the country.

As part of the Beijing municipal administration system reform, the Haidian District Public Service Committee was founded in July, which bring all public hospitals in the district under its management.

"The district government will make overall reform plans for thehospitals, fund them and subsidize their deficits. Hospitals' profit-making service items will be held in rein by the government," said Yu Xiaoqian, head of the committee.

Yu ascribed the establishment of Shangdi Hospital partially to the redefined government function in the management of public service sectors.

A second low-cost hospital is expected to open at the end of 2006 in Haidian, and a third one is likely to offer service specially to the local rural population in the ensuing year, Yu said.

China began reestablishing a rural cooperative medical care fund In 2002. Pilot programs have been initiated in 21 percent of its rural areas with a full coverage expected by 2010. Enditem