Pandemic underlines significance of providing public health services

The novel coronavirus outbreak has underlined the significance of medical and public health work and also exposed the shortage of medical and public health talent. However, the authorities are now plugging these loopholes.

On Feb 28, the Ministry of Education decided to increase postgraduate enrollment in several subjects, including clinical medicine and public health.

On March 31, Zhou Zixiao, deputy director of the Guangdong Health Commission, said at a media briefing that the province will strengthen its public health talent team, expanding postgraduate enrollments for public health course by 50 percent in 2020 and encouraging provincial colleges to establish preventive medicine, general practice medicine and biological medicine as subjects.

Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province and the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, recently decided to devote the postgraduate enrollment expansion quota to medicine-related subjects.

Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine also said at a recent media briefing that it will expand postgraduate enrollment, particularly in medicine-related subjects such as public health, nursing and medical technology.

Medical workers are crucial to society's healthy development, but frequent conflicts between them and patients is turning people away from the profession. Public health as a subject, too, fails to draw enough attention because the authorities and the public lack sufficient understanding of its significance.

However, the novel coronavirus outbreak has drastically changed people's perceptions. Countless medical and public health workers on the front line are risking their lives to fight the novel coronavirus and save other people's lives, winning the public's praise and gratitude.

It is heartening to see the government and education authorities acknowledging the significance of medical and public health talents during a public health emergency. Besides postgraduate enrollment expansion, several famous universities, including Tsinghua University and Southern University of Science and Technology, have started establishing public health schools to cultivate talents in this field. Thanks to such efforts, China will be better prepared for public health emergencies in the future.

- WANG YIQING, CHINA DAILY