BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 659 medical staff from seven provinces and municipalities have provided assistance to hospitals in Tibet since 2015, according to a report released at a regular press conference of the National Health Commission Thursday.

The medical assistance to Tibet was co-launched by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the former National Health and Family Planning Commission in July 2015 in a bid to build up medical capacities in Tibet.

Medical staff from 65 hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Anhui, Guangdong, Chongqing, Liaoning and Shaanxi have helped train 1,446 local medical personnel in Tibet, according to the report.

The number of outpatients and inpatients received by the assisted eight hospitals in Tibet rose by 37.55 percent and 76.23 percent from 2014 to 2018, respectively.

Medical workers in the eight hospitals saved the lives of 90.88 percent of patients with serious illnesses or in critical condition in 2018, up 21.55 percent from 2014, the report reads.

The seven provinces and municipalities have pooled 460 million yuan of funds for the eight assisted hospitals in Tibet for infrastructure construction, medical equipment purchase and research.

A total of 1,147 local medical personnel have been sent to hospitals in the seven provinces and municipalities for training, according to the report.