Who cares for the village doctors?

Believing that their situation will one day improve, village doctors are working tirelessly to better the health conditions of rural areas. Shi Huaiqing is one of this group of about one million village doctors.

Shi, 52, hails from the village of Shijiagelao in Luochuan county, near the city of Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. He has been a doctor for 35 years and has been responsible ever since for the village's 268 households.

Shi felt deep regret over the death of a 30-year-old villager, who died during the Spring Festival holiday, after a night of drinking alcohol.

"It took me nine minutes to get to his house from when I got the phone call," he sighed. "If I had advanced medical instruments to help him breathe, if I …" Shi's voice trailed away as it would several times during the interview.

Shi was unable to fall asleep or to eat anything, afflictions that commonly haunt him when he is too busy visiting elderly or child patients in the dead of night. Such late house calls are routine for Shi. On the eve of Spring Festival, he visited one elderly woman at 2 am and a child an hour later. When people are celebrating the festival and the public hospital doesn't receive patients, turning to Shi is their only recourse.

Shi's plight is similar to that of Zhang Tao, 38, another village doctor from Wujiazhuang, with over 300 families.

"I often can't fall asleep after I come back from house visits, but I've become used to it," Zhang told the Global Times. He keeps close contact with Shi and regards him as an "idol."

Shi once met Li Keqiang, the incoming premier of the State Council, at the Great Hall of the People with 12 other village doctors selected from all over the country on January 5, 2010. He was also chosen as one of the four representatives to meet the press after the meeting.

He has been awarded many honors, and on the wall of his clinic hangs the group photo the village doctors took with Li.

While talking to the Global Times, he took several phone calls and received three villagers, all within half an hour.　

"I enjoy being a doctor, and I'll keep learning to improve my medical skills," said Shi to the Global Times in his village clinic. However, he added that his medical expertise could not keep pace with the times. "Not only do we need training, but we need regular training," he said.

Major concerns

The job does involve some risks, considering the increasing number of disputes between doctors and patients in recent years.

"We're afraid of potential risks. Often, I am nervous about taking on a patient even if I am confident I can cure them," Shi said, adding that this definitely has increased the economic burden on villagers since they often have to travel far to town or county hospitals.　

Salaries are low, which is why so few young doctors choose this path as a career. Shi is worried that no one is willing to take his position, including his son.

Shi receives 10,000 yuan ($1,605) a year in subsidies, which is much better than the situation years ago when he and Zhang barely earned 60 yuan a month. But despite this improvement, it is still far from enough. "In some mountainous areas, the subsidies are reasonable to encourage village doctors to keep working but in my county it's difficult," said Shi.