BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China now has 4,238 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hospitals, with 877,000 beds, according to Ma Jianzhong, deputy head of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The Health News, a newspaper affiliated with China's health authority, quoted the official as saying that TCM medical institutions at all levels accounted for about 10 percent of the total health and medial resources nationwide and about 17 percent of the country's outpatients consulted TCM services.

"This indicates that the TCM is well accepted by the public," the official said.

The newspaper said that before the launching of a campaign to boost TCM services at grassroots level in 2012, only 75.6 percent of community health centers had TCM services and the figure had grown to 97.5 percent by the end of 2016.

Coverage of TCM services in health centers and clinics at township level and village level increased to 94.3 percent and 83.3 percent, respectively.