BEIJING - China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) Thursday announced it would allocate another 12.3 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) to support local healthcare reform initiatives.

Of the total, 2.3 billion yuan would fund subsidies of the rural-urban medical assistance system, in a move to cover more patients, promote treatment quality, and strengthen the fight against major diseases such as congenital heart disease among children, said an MOF official.

The figure took the full-year subsidy to 11 billion yuan from the original 8.7 billion yuan budget at the beginning of the year.

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It also allocated 8.8 billion yuan to promote services at primary medical care institutions, as these were the fundamental carriers of China's basic public health service, the official said.

A sum of 1.2 billion yuan was earmarked to support mechanism construction, which was crucial for the medical care system to run effectively and properly, said the official.

In supporting mechanism construction, for instance, 440 million yuan will be allotted to equipment purchases, maintenance and upgrading at community healthcare service centers and rural clinics funded by social forces. And 320 million yuan will be set aside for 16 Chinese cities assigned with the task to spearhead the reform with public hospitals in improving information system construction at hospitals.