Chinese growth in disabled care: new figures

BEIJING - Nearly 12.2 million disabled Chinese people received treatment and recovered from their conditions to different degrees between the start of 2008 and the end of 2012, according to data released by the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF) on Tuesday.

The CDPF said that 205,000 rehabilitation centers, with a total of 353,000 staff, were set up in communities in 889 Chinese cities and 1,905 counties in those five years.

And more than 1.5 million poor cataract patients received free vision recovery operations in the period, while 189,000 blind people took directed walking training, the federation said.

According to the CDPF, from 2008 to 2012, China established rehabilitation centers at both provincial level and grass-roots level, conducting physical training concerning hearing, language and limbs as well as intellectual disability rehabilitation training.

China has also improved prevention and treatment for mental illness patients, with 5.94 million people with severe mental illness having received treatment from 2008 to 2012.

China has more than 85 million disabled people. The number is expected to exceed 160 million by 2050, according to the federation.