A rural doctor runs into a herder on his way to a patient in Xinshui Village, Mazha Town of Yi-Hui-Miao Autonomous County of Weining, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 19, 2023. (Xinhua/Yang Wenbin)

BEIJING, Aug. 9, 2024 -- Latest data shows that China has 4.95 million community-level health workers, including 1.1 million doctors working in rural villages.

They are contributing to the forming of a massive network of disease prevention and medical services at community level in the country, said a statement from the National Health Commission (NHC) on Thursday.

Currently, there are 980,000 grassroots medical and healthcare institutions in China, handling about 52 percent of the country's total visits for medical care, the NHC statement said.

According to a key reform resolution recently adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, China will propel the development of tightly-knit medical consortia, and upgrade the services of community-level medical and healthcare institutions.

The NHC statement said that, based on pilot programs to construct such tightly-knit medical consortia at county level, a development blueprint will be promoted nationwide to cover all county-level areas by the end of 2027.

Also, efforts have been made to promote the construction of county-level resource sharing centers for medical imaging, medical testing and central pharmacies, and to make such resources reach rural villages. There are also programs in place to send doctors from higher-level hospitals to grassroots institutions, especially those in the country's least-developed areas. These measures are making high-quality medical resources accessible for more people at community level.

The NHC statement said further explorations will be conducted to establish referral centers and realize mutual recognition of examination and testing results among different hospitals, so as to enhance the continuity of medical and healthcare services and better serve the people.