Nongken (Zhanjiang) Medical Health, a medical consortium comprised of 23 medical institutions, was established in Zhanjiang on Feb 1 with the goal of making quality medical care more accessible to residents.

In April last year, the State Council put forward plans to construct a series of medical consortiums across the country. That was to forge closer ties between top-tier hospitals and grassroots health centers and to more efficiently allocate medical resources.

Covering an area of about 1,400 mu (93.33 hectares), Nongken (Zhanjiang) Medical Health has the investment to match its size, with its 3,000 employees, 5,000 beds and 2,700 medical devices that are each worth more than 10,000 yuan ($1,591) to serve Western Guangdong patients.

According to general manager Zhang Zongping, the consortium will first integrate its internal medical resources by disciplines before cooperating with nationally renowned specialist hospitals to improve medical skills and bridge the gap.

The laggard medical capacity and lack of high-caliber talents used to be two biggest bottlenecks for local grassroots medical institutions, said Zhang Jianwen, director of the Zhanjiang Health and Family Planning Bureau.

The establishment of Nongken (Zhanjiang) Medical Health, the city's first medical consortium, marked a significant step forward in the effort to provide local residents access to quality medical resources.