A doctor who travels through two eras

120 yuan/year, which means a basic monthly salary of 10 yuan.

For a barefoot doctor in the countryside, this 10 yuan was enough to survive even without any other income.

After all, barefoot doctors were farmers who could grow crops and vegetables, so their daily expenses were not high.

To put it another way, at this time, the vast majority of farmers across the country worked hard all year, and the total dividends they received at the end of the year for their production teams might not even amount to 120 yuan for the whole family.

There are approximately 350 million villages nationwide, which means Bao'an County would need to subsidize about 4 million RMB annually, which is less than 2 million USD.

This sum of money is an unbearable burden for local finances, but for Bao'an County, which is about to make a fortune from antibiotics, it's a piece of cake.

Dean Shan silently calculated for a long time, then his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Minister Lin, if I follow your method, why should I be the director of the county hospital? My monthly salary plus subsidies is only 25 yuan."

If I were to become a village doctor in a rural area, with my skills, I'd certainly have no shortage of patients. With registration fees, medication costs, and a 10 yuan subsidy, my monthly income would be at least 50 yuan.

50 yuan is an absolute fortune for a poor county.

Lin Sanqi smiled and said:
"Yes, we need to increase the income of barefoot doctors, the higher the better, so that others will be more envious. This will lead to a continuous increase in the number of people joining the barefoot doctor team, and even attract professional doctors to join."

I am strongly opposed to egalitarianism. If a doctor's workload is the same regardless of how much he does, it will only breed lazy doctors and their service attitude will not be good.

I once ate at a restaurant in the capital, and some of them had signs on the walls that read: "No one is allowed to beat customers without cause." Can you believe it? Isn't that terrifying?
If you go to a restaurant and the food is bad, with bugs or hair in it, or the waiter is rude, what kind of service attitude is that if the restaurant staff and chefs are always threatening you with knives?

Similarly, when we go to a supply and marketing cooperative or department store to buy things, if you ask the salesperson three questions and they answer you even once, you're lucky. Salespeople are usually arrogant and indifferent to you.

The same applies at the hospital. Doctors are there to serve the people, and patients are already suffering from their illnesses and feeling down. If they then encounter a doctor who is indifferent and speaks rudely, wouldn't their condition worsen?

At this point, any ideological and moral education for doctors, or any criticism and self-criticism within the Party organization, is all empty talk. They may say a lot of things at the meeting, but afterwards they will still do their own thing.

Therefore, the only way to improve doctors' service attitude, encourage them to learn medical knowledge, and make them cherish their job is through monetary incentives.

If the money is there, everything is fine. But if you're broke and can't even afford to eat, how many people can be polite and courteous to others?
Pang Donglai is the best example, but you don't need to know what Pang Donglai is.

Let me give you another example. Barefoot doctors work in rural areas year-round and are actually required to be on duty 24 hours a day. Who knows which villager might suddenly fall ill in the middle of the night and knock on the barefoot doctor's door.

If barefoot doctors are on call 24 hours a day year after year, they will get tired and their minds will be tense. Under such circumstances, how can you expect a barefoot doctor to have a good temper? How can they be willing to serve the villagers?
Hey, as long as you have the money, that's fine. How much do you barefoot doctors earn for each house call? Aren't you happy? You don't have to worry about wind and rain or traveling day and night anymore, because the more you do, the higher your income.

At this point, no guidance from superiors or urging from the people was needed; the barefoot doctors had plenty of motivation to serve the people around the clock.

County Chief Jin and Dean Shan exchanged a glance, both seeing shock and bewilderment in each other's eyes.

Dean Shan swallowed hard before speaking:

"Minister Lin, I understand what you mean. I like money too. If you can increase my salary and income, I will be very happy and more motivated to work."

However, this does not align with current propaganda.

The propaganda portrays doctors as hardworking, dedicated, and willing to make sacrifices, even to the point that they must not retaliate when scolded or hit by patients, and must keep their grievances to themselves.

"You're suddenly telling the barefoot doctor about money, that more work means more money, and that all the money earned is theirs—isn't that blatantly prioritizing money? It doesn't align with the directives from above."

Lin Sanqi said indifferently:

"Why can't doctors have money? This idea is wrong. Everyone says that life is priceless, so why should we have to bargain for treatment? Are we unwilling to part with a few taels of silver?"
If I don't reform urban hospitals, the mindset of urban doctors will already be fixed, and it's very difficult to reform the thinking of people in large hospitals.

Just like you, Dean Shan, you become terrified at the mere mention of doctors making money, fearing you might make a mistake.

However, barefoot doctors were a new concept, and it was easier for them to follow my approach.

If anyone objects, that's simple. Those who object, or your local government, can take on the responsibility of covering all the barefoot doctors' income. Since you're the one who pays the money, of course they have to listen to you.

If you are unwilling to take responsibility but want to point fingers at barefoot doctors and interfere in their affairs, I think you are not qualified to do so.

My attitude towards barefoot doctors is that local governments should only provide supervision and professional guidance, and not interfere too much. The more local governments interfere, the more likely they are to cause problems.

"Let them loosen their grip and allow barefoot doctors to manage themselves." Lin Sanqi had researched relevant materials and had personally experienced the development of barefoot doctors.

For example, his biological father was actually the village's barefoot doctor, and he even had a "village doctor's certificate".

Historically, the rural cooperative medical system collapsed and ceased operation in the 1980s after the distribution of land to individual households.

However, at that time, hospitals were still concentrated in cities, especially large cities.

However, the large hospital had not been expanded back then, and its capacity was limited, so it simply could not support the sudden surge in patient volume.

Access to medical care in rural areas remains extremely inconvenient, and this has not changed at all.

Therefore, the domestic medical market in the 1980s and 1990s was actually supported entirely by barefoot doctors.

The reason why barefoot doctors were able to support the health of more than 7 million farmers across the country was because of the relaxation of policies. Barefoot doctors could earn money by treating patients, and how much they earned depended entirely on their own efforts.

In the 1980s and 90s, barefoot doctors made a fortune. Although there were many problems, such as drug abuse and improper drug use, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.

After entering the 21st century, the community health service center system was promoted nationwide, and a large number of barefoot doctors were eliminated.

Those barefoot doctors who weren't eliminated were also recruited and became village doctors, receiving a fixed salary.

What is one consequence of this?
The barefoot doctors were back to eating from the same pot, getting the same pay no matter how much they did. They figured they might as well just relax with a cup of tea and a newspaper. They weren't even willing to make house calls to patients, and they had no interest in improving their medical skills.

As a result, all the minor ailments that barefoot doctors could have handled were instead referred to large hospitals.

This has led to overcrowding in large hospitals, making the problems of difficulty in registering, seeing a doctor, and getting tests even more prominent.

However, village-level community health service stations and township-level health centers are empty and have few patients.

Later, the health centers even abandoned their primary focus on clinical treatment and instead began providing public welfare services such as rural health checkups and vaccinations. This approach was highly problematic.

The emergence of behemoth hospitals like the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, which is the largest hospital in Asia, is actually abnormal.

A picture has surfaced online showing a meeting of leaders at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, where they bluntly demanded that all departments increase their business and earn a certain amount of money next year.

So the patient could have gotten rid of a cold by spending 100 yuan at a barefoot doctor's.

As a result, after going to a big hospital, they would do blood tests, X-rays, and add a whole bunch of medicine. You couldn't leave the hospital without spending 1000 yuan for a common cold.

Because hospitals need to make money, and they need to make a lot of money to maintain normal operations and purchase advanced equipment, which can only be paid for by patients.

Another example is when suffering from XX disease.

All the major hospitals were completely full, packed with people, as crowded as a subway during rush hour.

This phenomenon is terrifying because if there are even one or two infected individuals in a crowd, then all the patients and their families huddled together will be infected.

There were even news reports of patients queuing up outside the hospital, circling the hospital several times, waiting in the cold wind for a chance to receive medical treatment.

This is actually a tragedy.

If there had been a large number of barefoot doctors at the time, and the patients had been dispersed, and then treated with high doses of hormones, many lives could have been saved.

This is also one of the reasons why the mortality rate in rural areas was actually lower than that in urban areas during the XX disease period.

Because there are still village doctors in rural areas, they habitually use hormones for IV drips when a child has a fever or cough. This inadvertently led to a great success.

If you go to a big hospital, what can they do?
There is no specific cure for XX disease, and doctors in large hospitals generally do not use hormones easily because of prescription quality control management.

In addition, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic led to a shortage of all medicines, with only enough for one or two days, or even no medicine available at all.

So many patients just...sigh... (End of Chapter)