Barefoot doctors

A barefoot doctor performs acupuncture on a man

This article is a stub. You can help improve this article by editing it.

Barefoot doctors were doctors who treated impoverished farmers in rural villages in the People's Republic of China starting in the 1960s, until 1985. Created to address a critical deficiency in rural China's healthcare access in a short period of time, they typically received only three to six months of training; the idea being that after being educated in the basics, they could increase their level of education over time.^[1]

References[edit | edit source]

↑ “China’s long struggle with rural coverage for health care goes back to the early part of the 20th century. However, these early efforts were seen at that time as unsuccessful. Although the Government tried to draft private practitioners into the rural medical service corps, delivery of health care was still scarce after 1949. Health-care expenditure for 8·3 million that for 500 million peasants in 1964. After Mao Zedong criticised the urban bias of medical services and pointed out the stress placed on rural areas in 1965, mobile teams of doctors from urban hospitals were sent to deliver health care and train indigenous paramedics.
In 1968, the programme of barefoot doctors was introduced by the journal Red Flag as a national policy focused on quickly training paramedics to meet rural needs. Most barefoot doctors, who graduated from secondary school education, practised after training at the county or community hospital for 3–6 months. Hence medical coverage in the countryside rapidly expanded. However, the barefoot doctors, who generated their work points with medical services just like agricultural work (ie, their income was counted by transferring time for medical service to similar time for agricultural work,) were not at par with the regularly trained doctors and their incomes were 50% lower. Despite a low level of service in terms of technique and medical instruments, the barefoot doctor programme effectively reduced costs and provided timely treatment to the rural people.”

Daqing Zhang, Paul U Unschuld (2008). China's barefoot doctor: past, present, and future. The Lancet. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61355-0 [HUB]

[1] “China’s long struggle with rural coverage for health care goes back to the early part of the 20th century. However, these early efforts were seen at that time as unsuccessful. Although the Government tried to draft private practitioners into the rural medical service corps, delivery of health care was still scarce after 1949. Health-care expenditure for 8·3 million that for 500 million peasants in 1964. After Mao Zedong criticised the urban bias of medical services and pointed out the stress placed on rural areas in 1965, mobile teams of doctors from urban hospitals were sent to deliver health care and train indigenous paramedics.
In 1968, the programme of barefoot doctors was introduced by the journal Red Flag as a national policy focused on quickly training paramedics to meet rural needs. Most barefoot doctors, who graduated from secondary school education, practised after training at the county or community hospital for 3–6 months. Hence medical coverage in the countryside rapidly expanded. However, the barefoot doctors, who generated their work points with medical services just like agricultural work (ie, their income was counted by transferring time for medical service to similar time for agricultural work,) were not at par with the regularly trained doctors and their incomes were 50% lower. Despite a low level of service in terms of technique and medical instruments, the barefoot doctor programme effectively reduced costs and provided timely treatment to the rural people.”

Daqing Zhang, Paul U Unschuld (2008). China's barefoot doctor: past, present, and future. The Lancet. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61355-0 [HUB]

[1]