Critical Thought Paper
The sexual health care services in Shanghai, China, has been shown some progress in sexual health care by offering more service and mainly for free for people living around. This research will integrate some Chinese societal elements, such as traditional Chinese values as well as the changing of values to analyze how Shanghai is take an effort in providing sexual health care. It will also discuss how Shanghai is treating LGBTQ+ publicly. Meanwhile, the department of Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention has provided some free services with other sectors of health care in China, such as community health hospitals. This important sector will be analyzed in detail to illustrate the health care services that people can get access to.
People in Shanghai can get condoms in multiple ways. Since “Condoms remain the best form of simultaneous protection against sexually transited infections and unintended pregnancies” (Mullinax, et al., 2017, p.642), the ways of obtaining condoms are important in sexual health care. Any person in China is free to obtain some condoms from community health hospitals, which is not the only way that offers people condoms. In some hotels, they would provide free condoms or condoms at a fair price, such as several dollars for one box. Customers of hotels can get condoms in their rooms. But some hotels do not provide condoms in the room. Besides these special places. Compared with some western countries, there is no condom selling on China’s college campuses. When students need condoms, they can purchase from pharmacies, doctors at a normal hospital, and online shops, or get condoms from community health hospitals at no cost. The developed take-out service in China also enables Chinese customers to buy condoms or other related products online and the products will be delivered within about half an hour by delivers. This service is mainly provided in urban areas where the take-out service is well developed in China. This service can proceed in a kind of secret way where the deliverers would not know what the products are when they are packaged in a sealed box or bag by a pharmacy. The delivers can provide fast delivery service to meet the needs of customers. Since deliverers can normally reach the house from the house without the influences of the pandemic, the customers can receive an effective service especially when they do not want to go out and buy some condoms from a pharmacy at night.
China was well-known for its one-child policy, which put pressure on people to learn birth control. As one important normal approach to achieve this goal, community health hospitals have been the main places to provide people with free condoms. The community health hospitals also take the responsibility to provide sexual health care information to the people living around them. Since there are a large number of community health hospitals in China locate in every small community, the doctors in community health hospitals can offer more personalized and more private services for people who demand sexual health care information. The public hospitals provide services of STI/HIV test, which will normally cost like 10 US dollars, which is affordable for almost all the people who demand such a test. China also announced recently to reduce the tariff on HIV medicines, lowering the cost for consumers. The public hospitals in China have the authority to provide STI/HIV tests. Meanwhile, the public hospital is easy to find in urban areas. In rural areas, there is no such institute to provide STI/HIV tests.
As we have learned in class that HPV ranks the first in STI prevalence as well as incidents in the United States, it is worthy to discuss how Chinese people are coping with HPV. In recent five years, with increasing knowledge of HPV among the public, there is a huge demand for HPV vaccines. With this demand, the country is trying to import more HPV vaccines and some domestic universities have produced domestic HPV vaccines. The supplies of them could not normally meet the large demands in many cities. Even though both men and women can get HPV vaccines, in China, females are the main group to demand HPV vaccines. In many cities, they have to make appointments after months to get one shot. Meanwhile, the price for HPV vaccines is much higher than many common vaccines in China. One shot of four price HPV vaccine would cost about 500 US dollars. A nine-price HPV vaccine shot could cost about 900 US dollars and even more as it is highly demanded with a low supply. This phenomenon illustrates that more Chinese females are aware of the importance of the HPV vaccine.
It is studied that “HPV transmission via sex toys may be feasible” (Anderson, et al., 2014, p.2), showing the importance of mind the sanitation of sexual toys. However, in China, there can be no instruction provided by public health services concerning sex toys. Since traditional Chinese values do not consider sexual activities is a decent thing to talk about, the health information about sexual activities is not educated to the public. Sexual toys, as new products in China in recent years, are likely to be neglected when doctors are trying to educate some patients about sexual health care. Even Chinese doctors could be shy to talk about sexual toys as they are maintained within a certain group of consumers. The public lacks information about sexual toys. Even in Shanghai, a modern city of China, the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention does not provide any information about sexual toys on its website (Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 2021).
LGBTQ+ is not openly accepted in Shanghai. Although many Western countries have allowed LGBTQ+, there is no public authority that shows an acceptance to it which can be seen from the marriage law. The marriage law has not made any modifications to allow LGBTQ+ couples. At the same time, the public does not show public acceptance of it. There are fewer LGBTQ+ movements in Shanghai than in America, which might be one of the reasons why Chinese society does not witness rapid development in LGBTQ+. Privately, there are many people who belong to LGBTQ+. Although they are not publicly accepted, they can normally go on streets like a couple without many biases in Shanghai since Shanghai is keeping to open to new ideas and new phenomenon. Nevertheless, this situation might be different in rural areas of China where elderly people normally hold traditional beliefs by considering LGBTQ+ abnormal. This has become a problem and an obstacle for some families which have children who belong to LGBTQ+. The development of LGBTQ+ is slow proceeding in current China.
In a conclusion, sexual health service is provided in many forms in Shanghai. The supply of condoms has multiples approaches where consumers can purchase, such as via the internet, take-out service, public hospitals, hotels. Community health hospitals also provide condoms for free, which are easy to find in communities. The test of STI/HIV is provided in public hospitals at a fair cost, about 10 US dollars. The public also shows an awareness of HPV by presenting a huge demand for imported HPV vaccines. Sexual toys are however hard to be mentioned in Shanghai while people hold a traditional value considering it is kind of unusual. Even doctors would be shy to talk about them. Moreover, LGBTQ+ has not been accepted by the public in Shanghai until now.
References:
Anderson, T. A., Schick, V., Herbenick, D., Dodge, B., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2014). A study of human papillomavirus on vaginally inserted sex toys, before and after cleaning, among women who have sex with women and men. Sexually transmitted infections, 90(7), 529-531.
Mullinax, M., Sanders, S., Dennis, B., Higgins, J., Fortenberry, J. D., & Reece, M. (2017). How condom discontinuation occurs: interviews with emerging adult women. The Journal of Sex Research, 54(4-5), 642-650.
The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention. (2021). “Sexual Disease Prevention”. Retrieved from:
http://www.scdc.sh.cn/category/zcfg.shtml