XINING - China will allocate 179 million yuan ($28 million) this year for improving the infrastructure of public health services in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai province, the local economic planner said Thursday.

The funds will be used to build hospital buildings, hyperbaric oxygen chambers and health inspection centers in the provincial capital of Xining as well as in some ethnic Tibetan areas in the northwestern province.

Health services in Qinghai's Tibetan areas are relatively poor, and most herdsmen receive treatment from village clinics.

The central government began injecting funds for building better medical facilities there in 2009.