China tells hospitals not to deny emergency care to the poor

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's hospitals must not turn away injured people who need emergency care, the country's National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Tuesday, as the government tries to tackle a persistent problem in its sprawling healthcare sector.

Providing affordable, accessible healthcare is one of the key platforms of President Xi Jinping's government. But hospitals are often underfunded and overcrowded, and access to care remains a pervasive problem for the poor.