On June 6, 2014, Sun Zhigang, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) and director of the Office of Health Reform of the State Council, visited the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, and the Tumor Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University to conduct field research.

He inspected the out-patient departments, wards, radiotherapy centers and hospital-history halls of the hospitals and attended briefing sessions on the hospitals’ overall situation, their thoughts on development, and their implementation of measures designed for public hospital reform. Among those accompanying Sun Zhigang were Lin Shaochun, deputy governor of Guangdong province; Chen Yuansheng, head of the Guangdong Health and Family Planning Commission; Hou Yan, director of the Planning Department of the NHFPC; Xu Lihua, interim First Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the NHFPC; and Sun Yang and Liu Wenxian, vice-directors of the Department of Medicine Administration, who also joined the field research.

Vice-Minister Sun Zhigang fully affirmed the achievements of hospitals affiliated to Sun Yat-sen University in recent years and their contributions to the development of China’s medical and healthcare industry. Sun stressed that they must, while adhering to the aim of serving the people and ensuring the public welfare of public hospitals, strive for better capabilities to provide medical services, improve management, bring into full play advantages in making a diagnosis, and giving treatment of difficult and complicated diseases so as to provide more and higher quality services for the general public.