Child Care in the People's Republic of China: 1973

The enthusiastic accounts of remarkable and widespread improvements in health care in the People's Republic of China (PRC) provided by recent visitors there have been provocative, to say the least. For everyone familiar with, and concerned about, the problems of providing decent health care and adequate nutrition to the millions of preschool children in developing countries throughout the world, the Chinese approach to such problems is of interest. After many years of teaching pediatrics or community pediatrics in developing countries and many opportunities to examine child care problems in other such countries, my own interest was particularly great. Thus, an invitation to join the American Early Childhood Development Delegation for a threeweek visit to the PRC in late 1973 came as an unexpected and altogether delightful surprise. The Delegation were guests of the government of the PRC from November 15 to December 6, 1973. In response to requests submitted earlier by the Delegation, our hosts provided an extensive itinerary that included a variety of child care facilities but focused on nursery schools and kindergartens. We visited such facilities in and around four cities, Canton, Peking, Sian, and Shanghai-in urban neighborhoods, old and new, in factories, and in rural communes. As the only physician in the Delegation, I was assigned the primary responsibility for observing and investigating the health and nutritional aspects of child care. Our hosts arranged interviews with those responsible for health care in the nurseries and kindergartens visited, where there were often full-time health personnel. In addition, I visited a variety of neighborhood and district health centers and hospitals in urban areas, factories, and communes.