Villagers visit a health clinic in Gaoliu village in East China's Anhui Province on April 8, 2018. Photo: VCG

The total number of primary-level medical and health workers in China reached 3.965 million and there were 1.305 million licensed doctors in 2018, up 7.1 percent and 30 percent from 2012 respectively, and the number of visits to primary medical and health care institutions reached 4.429 billion, Zhuang Ning, deputy director of the Department of System Reform at the National Health Commission of China, announced on Tuesday.

He pointed out that the Chinese government has made the development of primary healthcare a key priority. 

Specifically, from 2012 to 2018, the central government allocated more than 90 billion yuan ($12.67 billion) to the construction of community-level medical and health institutions, basically ensuring that every village has a health clinic and every township has a hospital, which significantly improved the service capacity of county hospitals and enabled more than 80 percent of residents to reach the nearest medical treatment point within 15 minutes.

Since 2016, China has recruited 17,450 assistant general practitioners for training, and 82,877 have obtained the qualification of assistant rural general practitioner, further strengthening the human resources for medical and health services in rural areas, especially in economically underdeveloped areas, Zhuang explained.

The basic medical insurance system has been continuously improved, and the integration of urban and rural medical insurance systems has been promoted. The participation rate of urban and rural basic medical insurance has exceeded 98 percent, and the number of urban and rural residents covered by the basic medical insurance now exceeds 1.35 billion.

Moreover, national health and medical services continue to place emphasis on disease prevention. The per capita subsidy standard for basic public health services has been raised from 15 yuan in 2009 to 69 yuan in 2019. 

The service contents have been continuously expanded and service items have been gradually improved.

Zhuang finally stressed that National Health Commission will continue to deepen grassroots medical reform, contributing to the building of a healthy China. The State Council has recently issued a guidance document on implementing the Healthy China Action Plan (2019-30). This indicates a nationwide health campaign has officially started.

Global Times