Medical services, surrogacy among hot issues raised

Ministries and departments responded to a series of concerns from the public last week, including the improvement of medical services, the banning of surrogacy and work safety.

Health services

The National Health and Family Planning Commission held a news conference on Feb 8 and Jiao Yahui, senior official of the commission, said that China is implementing a three-year action plan, starting from 2015, to improve health services. By the end of 2016, she said, 1,378 medical institutions had offered mobile payment-based settlement services, 710 more than a year ago; meanwhile, 1,445 tertiary referral hospitals had established information database and offered access to the public, 200 more than a year ago; and 3,329 medical institutions had adopted appointment services, which reduced the waiting time of patients, Jiao said. By the end of 2016, she added, more than 6,800 medical institutions had provided telemedicine services to cover 1,330 counties.