President Xi urges protection, care for medical workers in epidemic fight

BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called for great attention to the protection and care for medical workers to make sure they are healthy and stay

focused on winning the battle against the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a recent instruction on protecting the medics participating in the COVID-19 prevention and control.

The following are highlights of Xi's instruction:

-- Medical workers are the backbone force in defeating the epidemic, and it must

be ensured that they get full support.

-- More efforts are needed to relieve the stress on medical workers, and provide

them with adequate daily necessities, ensure they have necessary rest, and get

encouragement.

-- It must be ensured that medical teams in Hubei and Wuhan can carry out their

work in a safe, orderly, coordinated, effective and swift manner.

XI'S PARTICULAR CONCERN

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, medical workers have worked day and night on the frontline. Some were infected or even sacrificed their lives while saving lives.

President Xi is particularly concerned about their wellbeing.

-- On Jan. 25, the first day of the lunar New Year, he expressed sincere gratitude to the medical workers at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on the epidemic prevention and control work.

-- On Feb. 5, he called for a severe crackdown on violence against medical workers, at a meeting of the Commission for Overall Law-based Governance of the CPC

Central Committee.

-- On Feb. 10, he extended regards to medical personnel during his inspection of the epidemic prevention and control work in Beijing, making arrangements to address

their difficulties and problems. He talked to doctors in Wuhan via a video-link and spoke at length about the protection and care for medical workers during the

inspection.

-- On Feb. 14, at a meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform, he again called for strengthening the building of public health teams and improving the mechanisms for the training, employment, benefits,performance evaluation and incentives for medical practitioners.

Since the outbreak, more than 30,000 medical workers, including military medics,have been sent from across the country to Hubei and Wuhan to fight the epidemic around the clock.