All but four of the city's 228 neighborhood health centers
provide traditional Chinese medicine to local residents, Shanghai
Health Bureau said yesterday.
TCM services now cover all downtown centers and 97 percent of
clinics on the outskirts, officials said.
The bureau started trials of TCM in neighborhoods in 1999 and
started to spread the service across the city in November,
2006.
To promote the service and improve its quality, authorities
named 32 model TCM service centers in each district and Chongming
County to showcase good traditional medicine practices.
Health databases have been set up in each center and services
include disease prevention and control using a combination of
traditional and Western medicine, home visits by doctors,
rehabilitation services and lectures on TCM.
"Traditional Chinese medicine in neighborhoods is welcomed by
the public, who can receive TCM within 10 to 15 minutes' walking
distance," said Wang Tong, a Shanghai Health Bureau official. "It
effectively solves local residents' requirements for cheap and
accessible treatment."
The average cost for each outpatient in the 32 model centers is
91.78 yuan (US$12.29), while TCM services cost 70.34 yuan. A TCM
prescription costs an average 69.34 yuan.
(Shanghai Daily November 1, 2007)