Barefoot doctor means a healthcare worker with certain medical knowledge and ability who has no fixed establishment, and is generally approved and assigned by the village or grassroots government.
"Barefoot doctor" is a product of the cooperative medical system in rural areas during the people's commune period, and it is the affectionate name given by the farmers to the "half-farmer, half-doctor" health workers, who have some superficial knowledge of hygiene, and are able to treat common diseases and deliver babies. They have some superficial knowledge of health, can treat some common diseases, and can deliver babies for mothers, and their main task is to reduce infant mortality and eradicate infectious diseases, so as to change the state of lack of medical care and medicines in the rural areas.
The characteristics of barefoot doctors
Barefoot doctors in the countryside are very hard work and not an easy thing to do. First of all, barefoot doctors do not have a fixed salary, and some of them only get some monthly subsidies from the brigade, and some of them are only paid in the form of work credits from the production team. This meager subsidies and work credits can not solve their lives, so they still have to participate in barefoot labor during the day, and at night they have to pick the lamp to learn medical knowledge.
Secondly, because of the poverty and backwardness, the medical equipment was very simple. In addition to a medicine box, a few ordinary tablets, a syringe, a few pieces of gauze, and little else.