Problems And Suggestions:a Study On The Medical Aid Programs For Children With Disabilities In China

Among people with the disabilities, children with the disabilities are the most helpless but the most hopeful group. Helping them is the most urgent and worthy. Since the red China in power in1949, welfare policy and service programs have been launched to meet the social needs from children with disabilities. The initial purpose of these policies and measures is to satisfy the needs of the disabled children family, reduce the happening of disability radically. However, it seems that there are policy vacuums in the social programs supposed to cover the needs of children with disabilities. There are still many loopholes and deficiencies in the policies and their implementation.In order to discover these problems and the causes, we need to understand children with disabilities and their family first. This study attempts to answer:What are the experiences of disability? What are medical needs for the family of disabled children? Whether the medical aid resources and services have satisfied the needs of the families? If not, what influences have made on their families? With the Long Interview employed as the methodology of the research, this paper combines qualitative research and policy analysis, describes the needs of the familiesN the situation of the policies and services and their livelihood. By comparing the supply with the needs, main findings are listed as follows:(1) The coverage of medical aid policy for the disabled children is very limited;(2) Service agencies are not enough and their distribution is far from justice;(3) Content of aid is not enough;(4) The level of assistance is so low that unable to meet the needs of families;(5) Effect of rehabilitation is very one-dimensioned. The paper also focuses on the causes of these problems and the negative and remedial natures of the policy are discussed. Based on the findings as such, policy suggestions are provided in the paper, which include increasing the public welfare payment and strengthening the disability prevention, especially the popularization of disability knowledge.