Zhang Wenkang Sets Out the Priorities for TCM Work
○ Deepen reform and broaden service into new fields
○ Bring out the role of Chinese medicine in the countryside
○ Do well in TCM inheritance and development
Speaking at the opening of the 2001 National TCM Working Conference on February 20, Minister of Health Zhang Wenkang said that the priorities of TCM work this year are to deepen reform, fully bring out the role of TCM in rural health work, and earnestly do well in inheritance and development under the new conditions.
Minister Zhang said TCM work, as an important part of the health enterprise, must serve the larger picture of health-system reform. Overall, TCM medical institutions still generally show late starts, weak foundations, and thin bases. Upholding the policy of equal weight to Chinese and Western medicine and giving TCM institutions a measure of support and preferential policies within health-system reform is therefore necessary.
On the other hand, TCM institutions must also change their thinking — deepen reform, work hard on the basics, bring out their character and strengths, raise service quality, broaden into new service fields, strengthen competitive capacity, and find their own development in reform.
Zhang noted that Chinese medicine has played an important role in serving peasants' health. Under the new conditions, the focus on the countryside must continue: build on the successful experience of advanced counties in rural TCM work; bring out the leading role of county-level TCM institutions in rural TCM; promote appropriate techniques in the countryside; and have the cities support the countryside in TCM work — refining and spreading this experience further.
Inheritance and development is the keynote of TCM's development and an important duty of TCM administrators at all levels. Minister Zhang stressed that today's inheritance and development of TCM is more urgent than at any time in history. The core tasks of inheritance and development must now be talent-training and scientific-technological innovation.
Excerpted from Health News, February 21, 2001