Primary Health Care - Barefoot Doctors

Barefoot Doctors

Barefoot Doctors was one of the most important inspirations for primary health care because they illustrated the effectiveness of having a health care professional at the community level with community ties. The barefoot doctors were people who lived in the rural areas and received basic training on health care. In other words, they were a diverse array of village health workers who lived in the community. They stressed rural rather than urban health care and preventive rather than curative services. They also provided a combination of western and traditional medicines. An important feature of the Chinese Barefoot Doctors was that the doctors had close community ties, relatively low-cost, and most importantly they encouraged self-reliance through advocating prevention and hygiene practices. The program experienced a massive expansion of rural medical services in communist China. The number of barefoot doctors increased dramatically between the early 1960s and the Cultural Revolution (1964-1976).