The real data is that there are 640,000 administrative villages and about 3.3 million natural villages in the country, which is a terrifying base number.
Given that it is impossible to build a new infectious disease hospital in a region, it is daunting to think about building millions of village clinics across the country at once.
It is normal for Minister Li to have concerns, as he is afraid that someone will make false accusations.
Lin Sanqi quickly waved his hands and further explained:
“We don’t need to build special clinics. Treatment facilities can be diverse and not limited to formal places such as hospitals.
For example, a barefoot doctor can set up a clinic in his or her own home, or in an ancestral hall, temple, or even an uninhabited house. The requirements are not high."
Minister Li nodded slightly and asked again:
"Then how will the cost of patient treatment be calculated? Or how will the barefoot doctors earn income? If you want local finances to cover the cost, I'm afraid your rural doctor program won't be widely adopted."
Lin Sanqi said without thinking:
"There is definitely a fee for seeing a doctor. For example, the registration fee at a hospital is between 20 and 50 cents, but a barefoot doctor only charges 5 cents, and the fee collected belongs to the barefoot doctor personally.
In addition, medicines are allowed to be sold at a 15% markup, and this part of the profit is also given to barefoot doctors.
In order to prevent local governments from not cooperating, this policy is that no local government funding is required, and barefoot doctors' income is entirely earned by themselves.
How much you earn depends on your ability, which can actually improve the barefoot doctors' work enthusiasm and service attitude.
In addition, conditions in different regions are different, so policies can be more flexible.
For example, in some wealthy areas with many patients, barefoot doctors can completely leave their jobs and become professional doctors.
But in some poor places, or with few villagers, it's difficult to make a living as a doctor. So barefoot doctors can stay in their jobs and even participate in village labor to earn work points, which is like being half farmer and half doctor, so they have two sources of income.
Lin Sanqi's approach is to integrate the rural medical policies of two generations while taking into account the national conditions.
For example, before the reform and opening up, rural areas implemented rural medical cooperatives, and members paid a certain amount of money each year. In this way, except for the registration fee, getting medicine was almost free.
The benefit of doing this is that it greatly reduces the burden on farmers, allowing them to go to the clinic for treatment when they are sick, rather than treating minor illnesses and delaying treatment for major ones.
However, this policy has one major drawback, which is that in order to save costs, the drugs provided are the worst and cheapest, and their efficacy is questionable.
After the reform and opening up, rural medical cooperatives were abolished and the rural medical market entered a stage of wild and free development.
Township health centers and village clinics can freely wholesale drugs from pharmaceutical companies, and then sell them to patients at a markup of their own accord. How much you earn depends on your ability as a doctor.
One advantage of this policy is that as long as you have money, you can get any good medicine you want.
At the same time, there is no financial burden because the health centers and barefoot doctors are responsible for their own profits and losses and operate independently, without the need for funding from higher authorities.
But this policy also has a big drawback.
That is, rural doctors will do anything to make money, drug abuse is common, and farmers have no place to reimburse their medical expenses, resulting in the prominent problems of difficulty and high cost of seeing a doctor.
Lin Sanqi's solution is to integrate the two rural medical policies and find a compromise.
Not perfect, but adequate in the short term.
Like the little boy with skin infection in Xiyang Village, Lintong County, who almost died from a minor abrasion, such tragedies should not happen again.
Minister Li pondered for a long time and felt more and more that the barefoot doctor plan proposed by Lin Sanqi was feasible.
Women are more careful, so the old lady asked again:
"So how do the barefoot doctors get their medicine? Transportation is very difficult these days. It can take days to walk from remote areas to the city. How can the barefoot doctors in these areas get their medicine?"
Lin Sanqi thought for a moment, then, drawing on his experience from decades later, replied:
"This is easy to do. We need to change the way supply and marketing cooperatives purchase and sell medicines. Supply and marketing cooperatives are too busy. When I was a buyer at Capital Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I had to go out of town to purchase medicines myself.
It is because the supply and marketing cooperatives are too busy. Minister Li, you can do the math. If all hospitals in the country have to purchase medicines themselves, how much waste of manpower and material resources will this cause?
So I suggest that we can set up a pharmaceutical company in each county, specializing in drug production, procurement and sales, and leave professional matters to professionals.
The barefoot doctors can buy the medicines they need from pharmaceutical companies, paying for them and receiving the medicines. They can decide what medicines they need and how much they need.
Minister Li suddenly felt a little embarrassed:
"The model you've proposed for establishing a pharmaceutical company is good, but there's another problem. We don't have that many pharmaceutical factories in China right now. Can your Bao'an County Pharmaceutical Factory supply medicines to millions of villages across the country?"
Lin Sanqi almost vomited blood after hearing this.
It was very difficult to do something in the 1960s. There was nothing and we were completely broke.
If you put forward a new suggestion, countless difficulties will be placed before you.
You are obviously a doctor. Besides being able to treat patients, you also have to be able to make medicines and solve the funding problems for the national health system. Now you even have to set up your own pharmaceutical factory?
"Minister Li, we have so many cadres and staff in the health system. You can't just pick on me and plunder me. How can I handle the pharmaceutical factory's problems alone? What's the point of having you health leaders?"
The old lady felt a little embarrassed after being scolded by Lin Sanqi:
"Oh, Comrade Sanqi, don't be upset. We're discussing something right now. It all comes down to the old problem of lack of funds.
For example, we currently have plans to build 50 new pharmaceutical factories, but due to the natural disasters of the past three years, there was no spare funds for investment, so the projects have been shelved..."
Lin Sanqi was at a loss whether to laugh or cry:
"I understand, I understand. So, send us a copy of the plan for these 50 pharmaceutical factories to Bao'an County. If we think it's feasible, Bao'an County will cover the cost."
The old lady was delighted when she heard this:
"Alright, alright, Bao'an County is truly our God of Wealth, haha. One last question. Do you have any teaching materials for barefoot doctor training? We can't just use the textbooks for college and technical secondary school students, right?"
As soon as he said this, an excited expression suddenly appeared on Lin Sanqi's face.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a book the size of the Xinhua Dictionary:
"Ding ding ding, Minister Li, here, this is the Barefoot Doctor Manual compiled by our Bao'an County.
The content ranges from common coughs, vomiting, and fever to complex cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancer;
From disease prevention knowledge such as killing mosquitoes and flies to protection against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; from acupuncture and herbal medicine to commonly used Western medicines, everything is covered.
All the content is based on the principles of clarity, simplicity, and effectiveness. Let me put it this way: even an ordinary person, with this manual in hand, can look up books and treat their own illnesses.”
The old lady quickly took the thick manual, looked at the red cover, and quickly opened it.
"Wow, your Bao'an County is truly amazing. You actually published a book directly?"
In fact, Lin Sanqi is not the original author at all, but a shameful plagiarist.
The real "Barefoot Doctor Handbook" was published by the People's Medical Publishing House in June 1970. It is difficult to count how many copies were printed in total. The Human Resources and Social Security version alone printed 1.18 million copies.
It has also been translated into more than 50 languages, exported to many developing countries, and regarded as a medical model by the United Nations.
Of course, Lin Sanqi revised the old "Barefoot Doctor Manual" and added introductions to antibiotics, antipyretics and analgesics, stomach medicines, etc.
The old "Barefoot Doctor's Handbook" has a slogan: "Treatment relies on silver needles, and medicine is found in the mountains."
This is because there was a shortage of medicines back then, so we had to rely on traditional Chinese medicine and herbal medicine, but this part was very difficult to learn, which also led to frequent medical accidents in rural areas.
After being improved by Lin Sanqi, a total of 1 million copies were printed in another time and space, preparing to make a big splash in this era.
The old lady couldn't help nodding repeatedly as she flipped through the book. Although she was not a medical professional, she had been a minister for ten years and had some vision.
"Good, that's great." (End of this chapter)
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