Neighborhood health centers expand services

All local neighborhood health centers have offered services during noons and weekends in order to meet the demand of residents, especially office workers, students and people who have no time for treatment during normal working hours.

Noon services between 11:30am and 1:30pm usually offer general physician services, while some centers also offer more services like traditional Chinese medicine in line with the demand of patients in the region, said officials from the Shanghai Health Commission.

Services on Saturday and Sunday mornings are available at all neighborhood health centers, while over half of centers also provide services on weekend afternoons.

About one-fourth of health centers, mostly in rural areas, also offer evening outpatient services.

To meet patients’ demand and ensure medical safety, the authority has regulated drug use in home-visit practice and includes non-medicine traditional Chinese therapy and hospice service to such practice, officials said.