Less than 50,000 Qualified TCM Doctors at Village Clinics: National Investigation

A recent national investigation has discovered that less than 50,000 professionals with qualifications in traditional Chinese medicine are working at village clinics in China's vast rural areas where TCM is more widely recognized than in big cities.

As Su Yi reports, the challenges that traditional medical practices now face also come from its lack of recognition and the predominance of new medical technologies.

The investigation reveals that more than one-third of China's county-level health centers and more than 40 percent of village clinics are unable to provide any TCM services.

Among the village clinics that do provide TCM treatment, most of their doctors do not have the necessary qualifications to practice it.

Yu Wenming is Vice Director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the state TCM regulator that carried out the investigation.

"Our TCM service network is far from mature, which extremely lacks qualified and well-trained practitioners and cannot meet the needs (of the people)."

The report was based on the investigation predicts that China will need more than 500-thousand TCM practitioners nationwide in the next five years.

While on the other hand, more than 50-thousand TCM practitioners in Europe lost their jobs following a ban on sales of such medicines in the EU in May.

Not a single Chinese pharmaceutical company has managed to become registered in the EU in the past seven years. China's Chamber of Commerce of Medicines blames this on the high registration fee, which can be as high as one million yuan for each medicine or type of treatment.

In an effort to increase their recognition, TCM hospitals and clinics are combining traditional treatment methods with new technologies.

One female patient says this is a good idea.

From 2007 to 2009, the number of TCM diagnosis and treatment facilities more than doubled. More than 500 Chinese manufacturing companies are now exploiting this market.

But the investigation also found that some TCM hospitals and clinics often do not provide TCM services at all.
Yu Wenming says the situation is not encouraging.

"We are tightening the supervision over TCM clinics to check whether they are actually performing TCM services. Our

investigation has found that it is because non-TCM services can generate more profit. I think increasing subsidies to TCM practitioners can change this situation."

Yu also says stricter supervision does not mean that the regulator will automatically reject innovations in TCM technologies.For CRI, I'm Su Yi.