Liu Lingli, an English teacher at a private college in Lanzhou city, died of cancer on August 14.Her case aroused wide sympathy and indignation among the public because her employer fired her after her diagnosis.In July of 2014, after two years of teaching at the college, Liu was diagnosed with cancer. Her mother asked for a half-year of sick leave for her daughter.In 2015, as Liu's conditions kept worsening, her mother went to the college, hoping they would continue to pay for Liu's medical insurance which would cover more than 80% of her medical expenses.Media reports reveal that the college rejected her plea and fired Liu Lingli five days later for absenteeism.Liu's family sued the college for the sacking and the court decided that the college's action was invalid.The college appealed, explaining that it had granted a 59-day leave to Liu but she had been recorded as being absent after the leave ended.Though the court rejected the appeal and ordered the college to restore Liu's employment, the college still did not carry out the decision.Liu's parents have a total income of only 3,700 yuan (around 557.8 US dollars) every month and her father also suffers from cancer. Liu's treatment has cost the family over 400,000 yuan (around 60,000 US dollars).The college has revoked the decision of sacking Liu and fired the head of human resources instead.The HR earlier said in an inteview that they were assuming that Liu was using sickness as excuses to work at somewhere else and sacked her based on the school's regulations.The college is also offering compensations of 72,000 yuan.However, questions are raised that who can come to help people like Liu Lingli, who was too poor to afford a large medical bill.Actually, China launched a pilot program of critical illness insurance back in 2012 in a bid to protect those from falling into poverty because of serious illness such as cancer.But the program is still beset with many shortcomings.The average coverage ratio of the insurance is only 50%. What's more important: the insurance does not cover a large number of expensive OTC drugs which are necessary in the treatment of critical diseases such as cancer.The government also failed to raise enough funds for the program.An official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs says that according to estimates, the program entails 36.7 billion yuan (around 5.5 billion US dollars), but the government only appropriated 14 billion yuan in medical aid in 2014.
