Attracting rural clinic doctors

The government should improve the payment of compensation and offer better career development opportunities for young medical graduates to get them to work in the rural areas, says an article on the website, www. rednet.cn. The following is an excerpt:

Jin Qinguan, an elderly doctor in a village of Wujiang, Jiangsu province, said he would work for no more than a year if he is not able to be certified. Without a certificate, Jin cannot get the same salary as that of a certified doctor, and has to depend on the sale of medicines.

According to the China Rural Health Association, the number of rural doctors has declined from 3.5 million to the present 0.8 million. Most of those that remain are the first generation of rural doctors in China.