The barefoot doctor in memory

The barefoot doctor was only available after Chairman Mao's 626 instructions. Their role has several aspects, to disseminate hygiene and epidemic prevention knowledge and to treat simple diseases.

There are a few small things about the barefoot doctor in memory.

The barefoot doctor in our village, Lao Li, was not of high cultural standards, and it is said that he studied in junior high school for two years, but he was already an intellectual in the village at that time. There are health centers in the people's communes, and there are a few college students who have graduated from medical school and can perform simple surgeries, such as appendicitis and the like. At that time, there was a saying that small illnesses did not leave the village, medium illnesses did not leave the township, and serious illnesses did not leave the county.

Barefoot doctors have undergone short-term training, their own medical skills are not high, but there are many unique skills, for some common diseases, they are nurses, but also general practitioners, for some acute diseases they play a very critical role.

For rural children, rolling in the mud all day long, it is easy to get parasitic diseases, before ascariasis is more common, children with ascariasis is easy to malnutrition, and often by roundworm bites make stomach pain, barefoot doctors will distribute pagoda candy and the like, coax children to eat. When we were young, there was an epidemic of meningitis for a while, and the barefoot doctor taught us to make Chinese medicine with reed root, water chestnut, etc. to prevent it. In the summer the weather is hot, it is easy to suffer from heat stroke, they will teach us to make herbal tea that tastes weird but works well.

In the past, there were often poisonous snakes in the rural rice fields, some of which were still very toxic, barefoot doctors often prepared detoxification herbs at home, farmers were bitten by snakes, barefoot doctors would cut open the wounds, suck out the snake venom, and then apply herbs, and soon get better.

There is one case that impressed. My neighbor Grandpa Gao, is the highest life expectancy in our village, at that time more than eighty, full of red light, the doctor looked at his face to know that his blood pressure was high, once Grandpa Gao suddenly collapsed, they immediately went to call the barefoot doctor Old Li, Dr. Li came with a medicine box, saw Grandpa Gao's situation, immediately found the silver needle, found acupuncture points on both sides of Grandpa Gao's earlobes, pricked a few stitches, put a few drops of blood, Grandpa Gao quickly woke up, after a while, gave him a few sips of hot water, rested for a while, can walk, The next day he was sent to the health center for further treatment. Old Li said at the time that this is a hypertensive stroke, the golden treatment time is two hours, missed time, cerebral blood vessel rupture, mild hemiplegia, heavy death. Many years later, my high school classmate's father also had a stroke in the provincial city, but the family did not understand, delayed for several hours, called an ambulance to the hospital, and various examinations, missed the best treatment time and was paralyzed, walking limping, and passed away two years later.

Now generally sick and then sent to the hospital, compared with this, barefoot doctors have several natural advantages, they go from village to village all day long, they are familiar with each villager, know the roots, who is in this family, what family history, which diseases are easy to have, know the chest, and when they are sick, they have a general judgment, do not have to check left and right like the current hospital, for some acute attacks of diseases, the key time is so many hours, missing it is easy to cause irreversible trauma, Timely treatment is particularly important.

During that particular period, the barefoot doctor system helped farmers solve the problem of difficulty in seeing a doctor at a very small cost.

Later, most barefoot doctors could not treat farmers because they did not have a medical license.