BEIJING — China will make efforts to ensure that all rural areas in the country have medical doctors and healthcare institutions by the end of this year, the National Health Commission announced at a press conference on July 9.

The country aims to enable patients with common and chronic diseases to receive diagnosis and treatments at primary-level healthcare institutions in counties, townships and villages.

As of the end of June, around 14.35 million poor patients with serious and chronic diseases received basic treatment and health management services, while the country’s poor patients only needed to pay about 10 percent of their total medical fees on average.

The commission said it would take measures to improve healthcare institutions in rural areas, such as enabling access to telemedicine in county-level hospitals in all impoverished counties.