Health chief vows more trained family doctors

China will put more effort into training rural medical workers so that the country can meet the goal of having one doctor for every family by 2020, a senior medical official has pledged.

Speaking at a medical industry conference which concluded on Friday, Li Bin, head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, also said that authorities plan to set up a system of online patient health records and give citizens medical ID cards.

Noting that the central government has been investing about one billion yuan (163 million U.S. dollars) annually in training rural medical workers, Li said the quality of rural doctors is still low.

Her comments came after the State Council said in a five-year healthcare service plan published on Monday that China is aiming to train more doctors and nurses to increase the ratio of medical workers per 1,000 citizens from one in 2013 to 1.25 in 2020.