Government funding for rural health care has virtually collapsed, leaving patients to foot the bills. At the Guanyindang sub-hospital in 1994, patients’ fees amounted to 1.12m yuan (£86,000) out of the annual budget of 1.36m yuan (£105,000).Only children under seven, very poor farmers and old people received free services, said the hospital’s director, Wang Yifa. His wife said with some feeling: “It’s difficult for us to pay.” An irritated Mr Wan roused himself from his pillow to insist that there was no question the money would have to come from the other driver.Before China’s economic reforms in the early 1980s, medical care for rural farmers like Mr Wan was even more primitive – but at least it was free. The big question now was who would pay for Mr Wan’s treatment. Sitting on his bed or lolling around were half a dozen peasants, smoking and sometimes spitting on the dirty concrete floor.
Four days earlier Mr Wan’s tractor had collided with a truck overloaded with straw and the drivers came to blows.

Teresa Poole in Guanyindang, Hubei province, sees the effects of health cuts

Wan Liangmo, his head swathed in a grubby bandage and his arm connected to a saline drip, was not short of company as his wife described how he had ended up in Guanyindang township sub-hospital. Others, like San Francisco and Detroit, boast two titles, but these have close financial links.. Houston, the fourth most populous metro area in the country, is now the largest without competing newspapers, joining cities like Atlanta, Baltimore and St Louis.Apart from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the three largest metro areas, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle and Denver are among those which still have two papers. But, according to its owner, William Singleton, the last nail in his paper’s coffin was the recent sharp rise in newsprint costs, from $400 a ton a year ago to an expected $675 (£435) a ton next month.

Apart from Hearst, no other potential buyer was ready to pay the reported $120m asking price for the Post and the Justice Department’s anti-trust division had little choice but to approve the transaction. They will receive two months’ severance pay.
The editor, Gerald Garcia, said he was shocked by what had happened: “I thought this was just another passing situation; I just did not foresee this.” It was the third closure of a big city daily in Texas, after the demise of the Dallas Times Herald in 1991 and the San Antonio Light two years later.The circulation of the Post had long lagged behind that of the Chronicle, most lately at 287,000 copies daily compared to 412,000 for its competitor. The end of the 110-year-old Post came with a suddenness rare even by the brutal standards of the industry. A late- morning announcement said the paper and all its assets were being taken over by the Houston Chronicle, its larger competitor, owned by the Hearst Corporation, and 1,500 stunned Post employees were given until 5pm to clear their desks. The enlargement of the alliance to the east has already posed new problems for its stance on nuclear weapons.. Washington – With hardly a word of warning, the venerable Houston Post closed down yesterday, taken over by its main rival in a deal that confers upon its home town the unwanted distinction of being the largest city in the US with only one daily newspaper, writes Rupert Cornwell. Britain said on 4 April that it would withdraw its nuclear free-fall bombs completely from service by the end of 1998.Nato’s nuclear doctrine and force posture is likely to come under further pressure from developments in European security.