When the Toutunhe district, in the city of Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region began its family doctor service this past year it had more than 4,000 people signed up with community hospitals, by Nov 18, with personal files on people suffering from ailments such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

This service has community doctors providing long-term less costly medical services, for example, in the Toutunhe district center, five general practitioner teams for family services for 200,000 residents to make the care more personal and convenient, according to Han Kui, head of the Toutunhe center, who went on to explain, "The people who signed agreements with the doctors can get treatment whenever they need it and the visit is free and the medicine cheap."

And the project is quite popular with the public, for example, Liu Huilin, who lives in Toutunhe and had a physical exam, on Dec 23, after signing up for the service with the center’s doctor Wang Lihua, and said, "The family doctor service will make it easier and more convenient for me to see a doctor now that I have my own family doctor."

By Li Xiaoxu and edited by Roger Bradshaw