(File photo)

China will spend 11 billion yuan to subsidise public hospital reform in 2015, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

The funds are mainly used to support reform of county-level public hospitals and to support pilot cities and second level hospitals to carry out reforms and training of resident doctors.

Public hospital reform is the primary task of the new round national healthcare reform.

Public hospital reform will be carried out in all counties starting from 2015. 66 pilot cities have been added to the list of cities that will carry out public hospital reform.

Each county will be given 3 million yuan (altogether 5.9 billion yuan) to carry out public hospital reform.

Each pilot city will receive 20 million yuan (altogether 1.3 billion yuan) to support the third group of 66 pilot cities to carry out hospital reform. The total number of pilot cities will increase to 100.

Each district of the 100 pilot cities will receive 1 million yuan (altogether 0.273 billion yuan).

A subsidy of 3.6 billion yuan will be given to 120,000 students to help them receive standardized training for resident doctors.

In addition, China will spend 9.8 billion yuan to subsidise public hospital reform in 2016.

This article was edited and translated from 《中央百億元支持公立醫院改革》, source: People's Daily, author: Li Lihui.