Boy's death reflects lack of qualified village doctors

The illegal clinic in Ruzhou City, Henan province.

The tragic death of an 11-year-old boy at the hands of an unlicensed village doctor earlier this week has once again brought into spotlight the lack of qualified doctors in rural China.

The boy from central China's Henan province had a sore throat and visited an illegal clinic in Ruzhou City, where the "doctor" Zhang Wenli pricked his tonsil with a needle. The boy died shortly afterwards from loss of blood. Zhang absconded with his family.

This is just the latest calamity to result from treatment by unlicensed practitioners in China's countryside. At the end of last month, a 70-year-old "midwife" was sentenced to 10 years in prison after the death of a patient.

DILEMMA OF QUALIFICATION

A national guideline encouraging medical workers in rural areas to get registered, receive training, pass an exam and get a license has been in force since 2004.

Tashi Yang, head of the health bureau in Muli Tibetan Autonomous County in southwest China's Sichuan Province, told Xinhua that many older medical workers were "barefoot doctors" who had difficulty getting a license.

These people were basically students or simple villagers trained in first aid after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. They delivered basic medical services in China's vast, remote rural areas, where previously healthcare had been primitive.

These services were essentially free and were crucial to the doubling of life expectancy in China from 35 years in 1949 to 68 years by 1978.

These practitioners, however, were far from well educated. "They prescribed based mainly on their personal experiences, and didn't know much about medical theory," Yang said.