One neighborhood health center will be selected in each of the city's 18 districts and one county to become a model for providing traditional Chinese medicine services by the end of this year, the Shanghai Health Bureau announced yesterday.
Health officials have drawn up the requirements for staff qualifications, technology and service methods at the model health centers. The bureau is also demanding all health centers improve the overall quality of TCM services they provide.
"Neighborhood health centers should focus on common diseases and elderly people's ailments," said Ji Weiping, director of the bureau's TCM department. "Their main tasks are health protection, recuperative therapy and disease prevention. TCM has a strong advantage on these issues."
He said TCM, such as herbs, acupuncture and massage, has been favored by many for a long time as it is comparatively cheap and tends to cause fewer side effects than Western medicine.
The price for massage and acupuncture is only 7 yuan (84 US cents) in local hospitals.
"We require that doctors involved in TCM should account for at least 15 percent of all doctors in the model health centers," Ji added.
"Our center specializes in massage and other TCM therapies. We will try our best to enhance services and join the competition," said Zhuang Guozhen, an official from the Hongkou District Jiaxing Neighborhood Health Center. "We will attract more patients if we become the model in our district."