Gao Runlin, CPPCC Member & former President of Cardiovascular Institute & Fuwai Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences

GAO RUNLIN

Last year, I participated in an investigation in grassroots hospitals organized by the CPPCC and personally saw the difficulties of local people in seeking medical service.

Currently, China's medical insurance system covers more than 1.2 billion people and the demand for medical services will further increase. However, owing to the insufficient medical resources, unreasonable allocation and low level of service capacities, especially in grassroots hospitals, patients want to go to big hospitals, leading to the phenomenon that big hospitals are usually crowded with patients while small ones have only a few.

I found that for small hospitals in many areas, it is the skilled staff resources that matters, not medical facilities. Some hospitals bought advanced equipment, but no one knew how to use them. So, I propose to make plans to foster general practitioners as soon as possible so as to ensure high quality medical workers in grassroots hospitals. Meanwhile, doctors in large hospitals, including retired doctors, should also be encouraged to work in hospitals in rural areas, so as to establish cooperation mechanisms between large and medium hospitals and small ones.