As the World Health Organization continues to focus on universal health coverage for this year's World Health Day on April 7, the National Health Commission of China has made the core message in its awareness campaign "Safeguarding Health for All, Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects." 

In the seventy years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the average life expectancy in China has increased from 35 years to 76.7 years, with main health indicators higher than medium-high income countries. China has not only guaranteed the health for one-fifth of the world's population but also provided valuable experience on healthcare to developing countries.

At an event to mark World Health Day organized by the National Health Commission on April 3, six groups of guests shared their own stories on protecting people's health in the country.

Rapid rise of West China Hospital

"As a doctor who studies, grows and works in West China Hospital, I have personally witnessed the social changes and reform," Li Weimin, director of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, said in reviewing his medical career. "The hospital's development in the past 70 years shows clearly it has thrived amid the country's prosperity and rise."

The precursors of West China Hospital, Cunren and Renji hospitals, were very small clinics when they were set up in 1892 by foreign Christian missionaries. In the 1990s, West China Hospital developed into a large public hospital, but still unresourceful, with no national key discipline, no national key laboratory and no academician.

Yet over the next 20 years, West China Hospital leveraged its advantage in abundant clinical resources to make great strides, becoming the first hospital in China to start an independent research institute. The hospital has now built a full-time research team and introduced a series of incentives to support research, with a priority on clinical innovation. In scientific indicators for clinical medicine development, the hospital has been ranked among the top 0.1 percent in the world and has independently developed more than 150 innovative drugs for major diseases and formed four advantages – resources, bases, teams and potential.

Since the 1990s, the number of outpatients and emergency services increased  more than four times and surgeries performed at the hospital surged nearly 18-fold. The hospital today boasts eight national-level medical platforms and is a diagnosis and treatment center for critical and serious cases in western China. It has also developed a unique medical treatment partnership system through cooperation with different types of institutions including general hospitals, specialized hospitals and communities. Thanks to the system, patients in western China are able to enjoy the same quality of medical services available as in China's well-developed areas, saving their troubles of traveling to Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou for treatment.