A symposium was held by the State Council's leading group for medical and healthcare reform via video link on March 23 to promote the successful medical reforms in the city of Sanming in East China's Fujian province. Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), participated in the symposium and delivered a speech.

It was noted at the symposium that last year, departments of the NHC and local health authorities have devoted great efforts in promoting the experiences in Sanming that has made strides in deepening medical reforms.

The symposium also stressed that top priority should be given to people's health. It called for enhancing grassroots-level medical capacities in order to ensure that many diseases can be treated at local medical institutions.

Learning from Sanming's experiences, local health authorities should further coordinate healthcare, health insurance and pharmaceutical reforms, promote the high-quality development of public hospitals and accelerate the establishment of a new and orderly pattern of medical services, so as to welcome the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Xu Shuqiang, head of the NHC's department of healthcare reform, presided over the symposium.