BEIJING - Yang Yufang, a patient at the paraplegic rehabilitation center of Tangshan, North China's Hebei province, still feels heartened by the words President Xi Jinping said when Xi visited the center three years ago.

Xi asked Yang and his wife Gao Zhihong, also a patient at the center, about their health and the difficulties they faced, while encouraging patients at the center to make their lives splendid.

"(He was) just like chatting with an old friend," Yang said, recalling the visit to the center by Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, during an inspection tour in Tangshan in July 2016.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core has paid particular attention to the wellbeing of disadvantaged people, and the central authorities have formulated a series of measures to improve the lives of people with disabilities, the laid-off workers and the impoverished households.