By Feng Wenmeng, Research Department of Social Development, DRC

Research Report, No. 86, 2020 (Total 5830) 2020-4-24

Abstract: Medical services play a key role in response to the outbreak of major infectious diseases by governing the discovery, report, quarantine and treatment of the diseases as early as possible. Since the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019, medical services have been crucial in dealing with the novel coronavirus, though some weaknesses have also been revealed during the process: medical institutions and health-care workers specialized in infectious diseases are inadequate; infectious disease prevention and treatment is not given enough attention in general hospitals; community-level medical institutions are not capable of responding to new infectious diseases; and the structure design and staff preparedness of most medical institutions are not adaptable to infectious disease prevention and treatment. Thus the following policy options are accordingly proposed. First, we need to build more hospitals specialized in infectious diseases, upgrade both infrastructure and overall capacity of general hospitals, and build up community-level medical institutions’ capacity in handling infectious diseases. The government needs to improve corresponding systematic designs, and ensure facility reserves. An epidemic handling structure with clear division of labor and proper cooperation will improve the overall capacity of medical services in dealing with epidemics.

Keywords: medical services, emergency treatment, infectious diseases, epidemics