To address the difficulty of accessing medical care in remote areas, it is necessary to mobilize private-sector resources.

　　“The state has spared no expense in addressing the difficulty of accessing medical care in remote areas, sending in plenty of advanced medical equipment. Yet in Tibetan regions, these devices haven’t even had their ropes untied after three years—simply because there’s nobody who knows how to use them,” Lei Jufang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairwoman of Qizheng Tibetan Medicine, told a reporter from Economic Reference News. Her remarks revealed both helplessness and deep concern about the challenges facing grassroots healthcare in Tibetan areas. She believes that to truly solve the problem of difficult medical access in remote regions, it’s not a matter of investing in more new equipment; the key lies in tackling the brain drain of medical professionals.

　　“In remote regions such as Tibet, the turnover rate among doctors and medical personnel who come from other areas is extremely high. To address the challenge of accessing healthcare, we should make better use of local medical resources and establish a medical talent-development system that is tailored to the specific needs of these areas,” Lei Jufang pointed out. She noted that there are many privately-run Tibetan medicine schools in Tibetan areas, which boast excellent faculty members and abundant clinical opportunities. These schools should naturally serve as a steady source of fresh talent for grassroots medical teams. However, the reality is that graduates from these Tibetan medicine schools often don't even have the chance to take the physician qualification exam. Many graduates, due to limitations in their educational background and other factors, are unable to obtain village doctor qualifications, making it even more difficult for them to open their own clinics.

　　Since the promulgation and implementation of the “Physician Practice Law of the People’s Republic of China” in 1999, ethnic medicine practitioners seeking to obtain medical practice qualifications must, in compliance with the law, take the physician qualification examination. Currently, six ethnic medical practices—Tibetan, Mongolian, Uyghur, Dai, Korean, and Zhuang—have been incorporated into the national physician qualification examination system. Subsequently, taking into account the unique inheritance characteristics of traditional medicine, the former Ministry of Health issued the “Measures for the Examination and Assessment of Physician Qualifications for Traditional Medicine Instructors and Individuals with Demonstrated Special Expertise” in 2006, encouraging qualified traditional medicine instructors and individuals with demonstrated special expertise to participate in the national physician qualification examination through methods such as apprenticeship under experienced mentors.

　　Lei Jufang said that compared with the current qualification examination for Western medicine practitioners, the apprenticeship system does indeed start from the practical realities of Traditional Chinese Medicine and addresses the issue of standardized criteria for selecting talent in TCM. However, when it comes to Tibetan medicine and other ethnic minority medical systems, this approach falls far short. Private Tibetan medicine schools in Tibetan areas have their own traditions and deep-rooted foundations, and they play an important role in Tibetan medical education. She pointed out that medical resources are already scarce in remote ethnic minority regions, so it is even more crucial to proceed from practical realities, treat students from different “backgrounds” equally, and establish unified assessment standards that reflect the actual conditions of local medicine. We should not favor or discriminate against students based on their different training paths.

　　In addition to enabling students at Tibetan medical schools to qualify for the examination, Lei Jufang also suggested that the Tibetan Medical Administration take the lead in organizing Tibetan medical masters and experts to design a qualification exam specifically tailored for Tibetan medicine, thereby simultaneously “enriching the pool of physicians” and “improving the assessment system.”

　　“Only in this way can Tibetan medicine gain ‘legitimacy’ and truly enter the appropriate positions to serve the grassroots population.” Currently, to encourage residents in rural and remote areas to seek treatment for “minor illnesses” locally, medical insurance programs at the village, township, and town levels offer relatively high reimbursement rates. However, according to Lei Jufang, due to the fact that their status and qualification certification have not yet been aligned with the mainstream healthcare system, many Tibetan doctors find it difficult to obtain approval to open clinics, meaning their patients cannot benefit from the preferential reimbursement rates under the “village doctor” medical insurance scheme. She also suggested that a study should be conducted to determine the proportion of Tibetan medicine’s role in primary healthcare, providing guidance and a solid basis for the specific implementation of Tibetan medicine’s promotion.

　　Another prominent contradiction mentioned by Lei Jufang is the issue of “medicines.” During the Two Sessions, she submitted a proposal titled “On Recommending the Priority Development and Approval of a Catalog of Time-Honored Formulas for Ethnic Medicines.” Lei Jufang believes that the Law on Traditional Chinese Medicine has epochally emphasized the importance of developing time-honored classical formulas and has clearly defined the path for such development. “However, the formulation of a catalog of time-honored classical formulas for TCM and ethnic medicines has not been synchronized with the development of Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uyghur traditional medicines. Take Tibetan medicine as an example: the ‘Four Medical Tantras,’ written in the 8th century, contain 443 classic formulas, most of which are still in clinical use today. Yet only a few dozen of these formulas have been developed into officially approved pharmaceutical products bearing the National Drug Approval Number.” Lei Jufang suggests that, as soon as possible, the time-honored classical formulas of ethnic groups—those that remain widely used, have proven efficacy, and possess distinct characteristics and advantages—should be prioritized for systematic compilation, cataloging, and finalization. These formulas should then be approved for development and utilization.

　　Reporting Media: Economic Reference News

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