Hospice founder honors pledge

In 1969, Li Songtang decided that one day he would open a hospice for terminally ill patients.

At the time, he was working as a "barefoot doctor", providing basic medical treatment in an isolated village in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

"It was my promise to Mr. Zhang," he said, referring to a former academic who lived in the village after being expelled from Beijing during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).