Quality healthcare continues its long march into the countryside

The authorities are planning to institutionalize the so-called "long march of healthcare into the countryside" as they work to bring quality medical services to the country's underprivileged rural population.

To support the spread of healthcare to rural areas, the ministries of Health and Finance initiated a "patching scheme" in 2005, under which some 10,000 urban health professionals are to be dispatched to rural medical institutions nationwide by the end of next year to give local people better access to healthcare.

"The assistance scheme envisions a long-term reallocation of the nation's healthcare resources, which have long been biased towards urban areas, to improve rural medical care and provide better staff at rural hospitals," Minister of Health Gao Qiang said yesterday in Beijing during a teleconference to discuss rural medical care policy.