China's health care costs increase: official data

BEIJING - Health care costs in China increased in 2012 compared to that of the previous year, according to a statistics bulletin released on Tuesday by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

The bulletin said in 2012 the estimated total cost of health care services in the country reached 2.89 trillion yuan ($473.5 billion), an 18.8 percent rise compared to the previous year.

The bulletin added there were 9.12 million medical staff in the country in 2012, increasing by 503,000 from 2011, with 565,000 more hospital beds compared to 5.16 million in 2011.

The number of outpatient visits in 2012 also increased by 9.9 percent from the previous year, according to the bulletin.

However, it said the input to health care services is still relatively insufficient, as the total cost was only 5.15 percent of GDP in 2011, lower than that of Brazil (8.8 percent) and South Africa (9.2 percent).