Barefoot doctor
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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 middl
A barefoot doctor performs acupuncture on a man
A depiction of a Chinese country doctor, analogous to the folk healers who fed into the barefoot doctor system
Hunan Provincial Medical Patrol in a Xiangxi village, 1966
Example of moxibustion
Healthcare in China
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Healthcare in the People's Republic of China is primarily provided by state-owned hospitals, with medical insurance administered primarily by local governments. As of 2020, about 95% of the population
Barefoot doctor
…the 1978 World Health Organization conference on primary health care and the resulting Alma Ata Declaration. In the lead up to the Cultural Revolution, healthcare in China was a complex and varied system. The Rural Reconstruction Movement of the 1930s spurred greater investment in rural healthcare, and experimental rural…
Apothecary mixing traditional Chinese medicine