China to boost service capacity of community-level health clinics

The Ministry of Health said Friday that it will enhance the service capacity of underdeveloped hospitals in rural areas and urban communities in order to provide quality health care service. Zhang Mao, chief of the ministry's Communist Party of China (CPC) committee, said at a national meeting on health care issues that the focus of the country's medical care system will be shifted from coverage expansion to quality improvement. China's basic medical insurance plan has already covered more than 95 percent of its population, making fundamental medical services accessible to urban and rural residents, Zhang noted. In the coming few years, China will further improve the services provided by community-level hospitals by equipping them with more general practitioners, he said. He called for more efforts to reform county-level government-funded hospitals by improving their service capacity, which will allow common illnesses to be treated locally. Zhang also stressed the implementation of policy initiatives to facilitate the development of non-public-funded health care institutions.