Family doctors prove to be the right remedy

Obvious differences

But the income of family doctors like Chen does not appear to be attractive.

China Daily reporters visited several community medical service centers and found differences between the income of community-based family doctors and those in large hospitals.

The monthly income of a family doctor is 4,000 to 5,000 yuan - half the amount a doctor at a large hospital earns.

"The low income is not good for attracting doctors to work in communities," said Xiao Feng, deputy director of the Zhoujiaqiao medical services center.

More than 400 families have signed contracts with Chen, and her efforts are being promoted at other clinics by authorities.

In many communities, more than 80 percent of residents have signed with family doctors, the Shanghai health department says. But one problem is there are not enough GPs to cope.

Under international standards, a family doctor should serve 2,500 residents, or 800 to 1,000 families. But to achieve this in Shanghai, the city needs 4,000 more physicians, Liu said.

The shortage is also a problem in other cities that have launched similar programs, including Yantai in Shandong province and Taiyuan in Shanxi province.

Across China there are only about 78,000 licensed GPs, according to the Ministry of Health.

To solve the problem, Shanghai plans to launch a medical training system for GPs, which integrates training centers, clinical bases and community bases. The target is to produce 500 new GPs a year, Liu said.

A GP training program and free education for medical students are initiatives that will help boost China's medical services in the countryside, Vice-Minister of Health Zhang Mao said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

China's GP program consists of five years of training in a medical school and three years of clinical GP training.

In July 2011, the State Council issued guidance for setting up a GP system, requiring the 50,000-plus basic medical service agencies nationwide to have a certain number of GPs.

Meanwhile, medical workers are being encouraged to work at community centers. The guidance states that the goal is to have two or three GPs for every 10,000 residents by 2020.

wanghongyi@chinadaily.com.cn