PREMIER Li Keqiang yesterday extended festive greetings to the country’s medical workers on the country’s second Medical Workers’ Day.

In an instruction, Li instructed relevant departments to push forward medical reforms, improve the payment, welfare and career prospects for medical workers, foster harmonious doctor-patient relationships and help increase respect for medical workers.

He called on medical workers to devote themselves to saving lives, improve their skills, maintain integrity and seek cures for serious diseases such as cancers.

At a meeting held yesterday in Beijing to honor model medical workers, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged medical workers to follow Li’s instruction and stay committed to protecting people’s health and promoting a healthy China.

More than 700 people, including representatives of medical workers, officials and people from medical organizations, attended the meeting.

On the same day, China honored 10 medical workers and a team of volunteer doctors as “role model doctors” for their dedication to public health as the country marked the festival.

The Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the National Health Commission conferred certificates of honor on the outstanding medical workers and made their stories public.

Honorees include a late vaccine pioneer who spent his life fighting against polio and an ophthalmologist who has brought sight to nearly 30,000 blind people, as well as health guardians of people living in rural and border areas.

China set Aug. 19 as its Medical Workers’ Day to call for respect from society for the country’s more than 11.7 million medical and health workers.

On Sina Weibo, a micro-blogging site and major social media platform in China, the festival has become a trending topic which garnered 130 million views.

In the eyes of the majority, doctors are like matches, and they burn themselves up to give others light.

Many netizens delivered thanks and good wishes on Chinese social media platforms to medical workers by saying “Happy Medical Workers’ Day!”

The country has about 3.6 million qualified physicians and 4.1 million registered nurses. They have formed a strong force to support the most significant medical service system in the world of safeguarding the health of 1.4 billion people in China.

(Xinhua)