Breathing fresh air into medical reforms(2)

National needs

"The upgraded strength of health services at the grassroots level should not only deal with seasonal contagious diseases better, but also meet the overall future medical needs of the country when it is faced with an increasingly aging population," said Zhang, the national political adviser, who is also head of the infectious disease department at Shanghai Huashan Hospital.

Shanghai is one of the first Chinese cities to deal with the realities of an aging society. At the end of 2022, more than 5.5 million of the city's permanent residents were aged 60 or older, accounting for 36.8 percent of the city's total population, according to the latest official statistics.

Nationally, the country may enter a stage of moderate aging next year. The National Health Commission has estimated that the number of elderly people aged 60 and above will exceed 300 million in 2025, accounting for over 20 percent of China's population.

There are more than 977,000 primary medical institutions in the country, accounting for nearly 95 percent of the total number of medical institutions, according to the NHC. However, to date they have not been given adequate resources, according to experts.

The availability of basic medicines at community health service centers is limited, said Gu Jieyan, a political adviser. "It's necessary to expand the scope of drugs supplied at such grassroots facilities and allow them to have therapies for common diseases consistent with secondary and tertiary medical institutions in the same region," said Gu, also vice-governor of Shanghai's Songjiang district and in charge of its public health system.

Wang Changfeng, a 73-year-old Shanghai resident, said that he usually goes to a tertiary hospital for treatment of his chronic cough because the medicine that works best for him is only available there.

"Seeing a doctor there usually takes half a day. And in a long cycle of treatment this situation may be repeated several times," he said.