China to improve medical rehabilitation services capacity

An elderly man undertakes rehabilitation training at the Tangshan Anxin Medical Pension Manor in Guye District of Tangshan City in north China's Hebei Province, March 24, 2021. (Xinhua/Mu Yu)

BEIJING, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities have issued a circular to improve the capacity of medical rehabilitation services, to provide comprehensive services for its people at all stages of life.

The document, jointly issued by the National Health Commission and seven other departments, sets the goal of establishing a professional medical rehabilitation team by 2022.

It also urges efforts to ensure eight rehabilitation physicians and 12 rehabilitation therapists for every 100,000 people by 2025.

The document also calls for strengthening the construction of rehabilitation hospitals and the departments of rehabilitation medicine at general hospitals, requiring at least one rehabilitation hospital at or above Grade II in every provincial capital and every prefecture-level city with a permanent population of more than 3 million.