24 November, the Nanjing municipal government announced the “Development Plan of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Nanjing from 2017 to 2030”. By 2020, it is planned that all towns, hospitals and community health services, as well as over 95 percent of village clinics in Nanjing will have access to TCM services.
In 2016, there were a total of 25 facilities that offered TCM services, including TCM hospitals and integrative medicine hospitals. TCM clinical departments had a total of 7,076 beds and four national-level, expert practitioners. In addition, 200 provincial and municipal TCM and western medicine experts were in service, with a further 3,119 assistant practitioners.
Plans will focus on the construction of two municipal TCM hospitals, and will continue to strengthen the integration of traditional Chinese and western medicine in Nanjing hospitals. It also aims to accelerate progress on the Lishui District TCM Hospital, which is currently under construction. In addition, by 2020, Jiangning, Pukou, Liuhe, Lishui and Gaochun districts will receive grade three TCM hospitals.
Nanjing resident, Ms. Nancy Guo, told the Nanjinger, “Nowadays people are paying more and more attention to their health, it’s very important… the construction of these [TCM] hospitals seems to be a trend of the times”.
According to reports by The Paper, in 2016, the total number of patients at said 25 hospitals throughout Nanjing reached 10,360,000, while the number of people successfully treated and discharged was 195,000.
The proportion of TCM diagnosis and treatment in basic medical and health institutions at present accounts for more than 30 percent of the total. By 2020, everyone will have better access to TCM services, with the number of TCM beds per thousand permanent residents reaching 0.75, while the number of practitioners is hoped to reach 0.40.
