National Health Commission: Taking Multiple Measures to Improve Grassroots Medical Services

Original Title: National Health Commission: Taking Multiple Measures to Improve Grassroots Medical Services

Beijing, August 26 (Xinhua) (Zhang Yuhui) On the 25th, the National Health Commission held a regular press conference on the recently issued "Grassroots Health and Convenience Service Measures for the People". At the meeting, Fu Wei, the supervising commissioner of the Grassroots Health Department of the National Health Commission, answered questions from reporters regarding relevant issues.

Taking multiple measures to facilitate the access of urban and rural residents to medical services

Fu Wei stated that in order to further facilitate the access of urban and rural residents to nearby health services and enhance their sense of gain, the General Office of the National Health Commission recently issued the "Grassroots Health and Welfare Services Measures", proposing 10 specific measures around 6 aspects.

Fu Wei mentioned that various regions will steadily advance and gradually implement the plan based on the three-year action plan and combined with their respective realities. At the same time, proposing areas where conditions permit can further enrich and refine relevant measures.

At present, various regions are actively promoting and implementing relevant measures. For example, some community health service centers in Beijing and Shanghai offer extended outpatient services to facilitate community residents' access to basic medical care, chronic disease medication, home doctor contract signing, health consultation, and other services; Provinces such as Zhejiang and Guangdong actively promote long-term prescription services for chronic diseases, making it easier for residents, especially elderly residents, to dispense medication and reduce the frequency of medication; Jilin, Hunan and other provinces have comprehensively promoted the settlement of outpatient medical insurance in village clinics, facilitating villagers to seek medical treatment and prescribe medication nearby. These practices have made it easier and more comfortable for grassroots people to seek medical treatment, and have been welcomed and affirmed by the majority of residents.

Reasonably allocate grassroots medical human resources

Fu Wei pointed out that promoting doctors with intermediate and senior professional titles to be on duty in township health centers and community health service centers is aimed at improving the quality and level of grassroots outpatient services, and better meeting the medical needs of the public at home.

Regarding the current shortage of personnel in grassroots medical and health institutions, Fu Wei discussed the following measures. Firstly, grassroots medical and health institutions should make internal adjustments and arrangements, reasonably allocate manpower, and make good use of their own manpower. Secondly, the county and district health administrative departments should coordinate the resources of second and third level hospitals, better sink into the grassroots level, and strengthen external support. Thirdly, medical consortia and medical communities should also play a practical role by regularly sending medical personnel to the grassroots for consultation, achieving the sharing of medical resources. For remote areas, medical services can be sunk through remote medical treatment, rounds, and other methods.

Strengthen training for grassroots medical personnel

Fu Wei stated that medical personnel are responsible for the lives and health of the people, and it is important to strengthen the training and continuing education of medical personnel.

With the support of the central government, the National Health Commission launched the Grassroots Health Talent Capacity Enhancement Training Project in 2018. In order to improve the quality and effectiveness of training, the National Health Commission has selected 96 grassroots medical and health institutions with good infrastructure, strong teaching ability, and suitable for learning and practice as training bases nationwide. A total of 650000 grassroots medical and health workers have been trained offline. In addition, the online platform has only collected over 5000 course videos, which are free and open to all grassroots medical personnel, with over 1.8 million registered learners. (End)