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| {{Message box/Copiedfromwiki}}[[File:BarefootDoctor.jpg|thumb|A barefoot doctor performs acupuncture on a man]]
| | [[File:BarefootDoctor.jpg|thumb|A barefoot doctor performs acupuncture on a man]] |
| '''Barefoot doctors''' were healthcare providers who underwent basic medical training and worked in rural villages in [[China]]. They included farmers, folk healers, rural healthcare providers, and recent middle or secondary school graduates who received minimal basic medical and paramedical education.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":15" /> Their purpose was to bring healthcare to rural areas where urban-trained doctors would not settle. They promoted basic hygiene, preventive healthcare, and family planning and treated common illnesses.<ref name=":16" /> The name comes from southern farmers, who would often work barefoot in the rice paddies, and simultaneously worked as medical practitioners.<ref name=":4" /> | | '''Barefoot doctors''' were doctors who treated impoverished farmers in rural villages in the [[People's Republic of China]] starting in the 1960s. They typically received only three to six months of training. |
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| In the 1930s, the [[Rural Reconstruction Movement]] had pioneered village health workers trained in basic health as part of a coordinated system, and there had been provincial experiments after 1949, but after [[Mao Zedong]]'s healthcare speech in 1965 the concept was developed and institutionalized.<ref name=":14" /> China's health policy began to emphasize the importance of barefoot doctors after Mao Zedong's June 26 directive, and, in 1968, the barefoot doctors program became integrated into national policy.<ref name="zhang">{{Citation |authors= |date= |title=China's barefoot doctor: past, present, and future |journal= |volume=372 |issue=9653 |pages= |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61355-0 |pmid=18930539 |s2cid=44522656|author=Daqing Zhang, Paul U Unschuld|year=2008|page=1865–1867|title-url=https://sci-hub.st/10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61355-0|publisher=Lancet}}
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| </ref> These programs were called "rural cooperative medical systems" (RCMS) and worked to include community participation with the rural provision of health services.<ref name="carrin">{{Citation |author=Carrin G, Ron A, Hui Y, Hong W, Tuohong Z, Licheng Z, Shuo Z, Yide Y, Jiaying C, Qicheng J, Zhaoyang Z, Jun Y, Xuesheng L |title=The reform of the rural cooperative medical system in the People's Republic of China: interim experience in 14 pilot counties |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=48 |issue=7 |pages=961–72 |date=April 1999 |pmid=10192562 |doi=10.1016/S0277-9536(98)00396-7 }}
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| </ref>
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| Barefoot doctors became a part of the [[Cultural Revolution]], which also radically diminished the influence of the [[Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China|Ministry of Health]], which was filled with Western-trained doctors. Still, barefoot doctors continued to introduce scientific medicine to rural areas by merging it with [[traditional Chinese medicine|Chinese medicine]].<ref name=":4" /> With the onset of market-oriented reforms after the Cultural Revolution, political support for barefoot doctors dissipated, and "health-care crises of peasants substantially increased after the system broke down in the 1980s."<ref name="zhang" /> Despite the fact that the official barefoot doctor system came to an end, the legacy of the barefoot doctors inspired the 1978 [[World Health Organization]] conference on [[primary health care]] and the resulting [[Alma Ata Declaration]].<ref name=":1" />
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| ==References==
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