By Bai Jianfeng, Health is closely tied to the well-being of every household and is essential for the future of a nation. In recent years, China’s healthcare system has seen remarkable strides toward high-quality development.
China has expanded high-quality medical resources to the primary level, ensuring that residents have access to nearby medical services. The country has established 13 national medical centers specializing in different fields and 125 regional medical centers in 29 provincial-level regions. This has led to a more balanced distribution of medical resources to better serve the public.
So far, 92 percent of the county-level hospitals across the country have met the standards for Grade-II hospitals in terms of medical service capacity. By the end of August this year, 90.9 percent of counties in China had sent staff members from county-level hospitals to township health centers.
Besides, China has pushed for coordinated reforms in medical services, medical insurance and pharmaceuticals.
The country has stopped the practice of raising prices of medicines and medical supplies to make up for low medical service costs since 2012. It has introduced a new system centered around medical services. Chinese public hospitals are now only funded by government allocations and medical service fees, highlighting the non-profit nature of medical services.
Furthermore, China has strengthened the training of healthcare professionals, with over 80,000 rural students becoming medical professionals through government-funded programs by the end of last year, providing rural areas with skilled professionals.
Each year, over half a million Chinese students complete their medical studies at the undergraduate level or higher, injecting fresh momentum into the development of the healthcare sector. China has built the most extensive healthcare service system in the world with 12.48 million technical professionals in the national health system.
Basic medical services are now easily available in impoverished areas at the village and township levels in China, which no longer suffer from inadequate healthcare institutions and personnel. By 2023, the average life expectancy of Chinese residents reached 78.6 years, an increase of more than three years compared to 2012.
China attaches equal importance to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine, leveraging their respective strengths to achieve coordinated development. The country has launched multiple initiatives to promote the integration of Chinese and Western medicine by improving institutions, creating new models and cultivating talents, achieving notable results.
China is making efforts to build a high-quality and efficient TCM service system. The country has advanced the construction of national TCM service centers, established 27 regional TCM medical centers, and designated 1,158 national-level TCM specialty departments. These initiatives have expanded the accessibility to quality medical resources and ensured a more balanced resource distribution.
Additionally, China has supported the development of 130 city-level hospitals with TCM specialties, and over 1,000 county-level hospitals have been encouraged to set up two advantageous TCM departments and one promotional center for TCM techniques.
The China Center for Evidence Based Traditional Chinese Medicine has become part of the International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registry (ITMCTR), which is recognized as a primary registry of the World Health Organization (WHO) and contributes data to the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). The center has released a series of treatments, techniques, and highly effective herbal medicines for diseases where TCM has advantages.
In terms of talent development, China has implemented a national training initiative for TCM specialists. The number of licensed TCM practitioners in the country had reached 868,000 by the end of last year.
To effectively prevent and manage infectious disease outbreaks, China has developed a comprehensive infectious disease monitoring and early warning system.
In recent years, the country has established 10 monitoring systems for various infectious diseases and initiated monitoring of 15 common respiratory pathogens, providing vital support for clinical treatment and epidemic control.
China is also developing an infectious disease monitoring and emergency command information platform, installing intelligent monitoring and early warning software in Grade-II and higher-level medical institutions nationwide.
So far, China has established an advanced pathogen detection system that can identify over 300 known pathogens within 24 hours and effectively recognize new pathogens within 60 hours.
Twenty-three provinces across the country have built biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) laboratories, and all provincial-level and 90 percent of city-level disease control centers have the capability to detect and isolate viruses.
By the end of this year, the number of Chinese national emergency response teams for acute infectious diseases will increase to 25, and all cities and counties in China will have infectious disease response units at the primary level.
