Lesson 3-How successful were the changes made to health provision?

Question 1

Epidemic

Answer 1

Widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.

Question 2

Barefoot doctors

Answer 2

Paramedics sent to rural areas to provide basic healthcare

Question 3

What are parasitic diseases?

Answer 3

Organisms that live off other organisation, or hosts, to survive.

Question 4

Example of parasitic diseases.

Answer 4

Schistoscomiasis-deadly disease carried by snails

Question 5

Cholera

Answer 5

An infectious and often fatal bacterial disease of the small intestine, typically contracted from infected water supplies and causing severe vomiting and diarrhoea

Question 6

Dysentery

Answer 6

Infection of the intestines resulting in severe diarrhoea with the presence of blood and mucus in the faeces.

Question 7

Patriotic Health Campaign

Answer 7

Propaganda drives to explain the importance of hygiene and the link between dirt and disease.

Question 8

Typhoid

Answer 8

Infectious bacterial fever with an eruption of red spots on the chest and abdomen and severe intestinal irritation.

Question 9

Why were doctors being attacked under the CR?

Answer 9

Seen as a professional class that lived off the backs of the workers.

Were the privileged elite who used their special skills to make money for an indulgent, bourgeois lifestyle

Question 10

What were doctors accused of not learning?

Answer 10

‘Dignity of labour’

Question 11

What did doctors have to do to their medical considerations?

Answer 11

Give them lesser importance compare to political considerations

Question 12

Since doctors did not give their medical considerations as much importance as their political ones, what happened?

Answer 12

Produced absurdities e.g., surgeons cancelled operations in order to show their solidarity with the workers by sweeping floors and cleaning toilets.

Question 13

What did some doctors decide about pain and bearing it?

Answer 13

Saw showing pain as a bourgeois reaction and that bearing things without flinching was a sign of revolutionary purpose

Question 14

What would doctors do as a result of their ideas around pain and bearing it?

Answer 14

No longer used anaesthetics and analgesics e.g., denied women in labour any painkillers

Question 15

Despite Mao unfairly criticising the medical profession on political grounds, what did he remain aware of?

Answer 15

The propaganda value of effective health provision

Question 16

When was a crash programme introduced for training doctors?

Answer 16

Late 1960s

Question 17

What did the crash programme for training doctors involve?

Answer 17

Based on short practical courses.
Trainees would have a 6 month intensive study with emphasis on practicals.

Question 18

Why was the crash programme intended to be short?

Answer 18

It was believed that it was the long period of academic study of doctors that made them detach from the people

Question 19

What would doctors do once the short training course was completed?

Answer 19

Were sent to work among peasants

Question 20

Was the short course training of doctors a success?

Answer 20

Yes

Question 21

By 1973, how many new doctors had been trained due to the crash programme?

Answer 21

Over a million

Question 22

What did barefoot doctors contribute to?

Answer 22

Improvements of the lives of the peasants

Question 23

How much did it cost for a barefoot doctor?

Answer 23

Worked free of charge

Question 24

In what type of condition did the barefoot doctors often perform their minor miracles?

Answer 24

Primitive

Question 25

What could barefoot doctors not do?

Answer 25

Provide the full national medical service that a modern state needed.

Question 26

What were there high hopes to do in regards to healthcare?

Answer 26

Extend it to everyone

Question 27

What was launched to explain the importance of hygiene?

Answer 27

Patriotic health movements/ campaigns

Question 28

What was there on emphasis on and over in regards to diseases?

Answer 28

Prevention rather than cure

Question 29

Why was there an emphasis on prevention not cure?

Answer 29

There was a serious shortage of hospital facilities and of trained doctors and nurses.

Question 30

How was there able to be some successes in reducing the death rate from waterborne diseases (Cholera)?

Answer 30

Encouraged digging of deeper well for obtaining drinking water.
Promoted more careful disposal of human waste in pits away from home

Question 31

What was a major cause of disease concerning farming?

Answer 31

Using human waste (night soil) as a source of fertiliser in the fields

Question 32

What was done to prevent disease from human waste fertiliser?

Answer 32

The practice was discouraged

Question 33

What was there a campaign about snails for?

Answer 33

To educate the peasantry about the need to control the snails that spread schistosmiasis, a serious abnormal infection responsible for many deaths.

Question 34

How were the health-care reforms successful?

Answer 34

Smallpox, cholera, typhus and typhoid fever was practically eliminated.

Question 35

What happened to swamps that spread malaria?

Answer 35

Were drained

Question 36

What health-care campaign was taken up during the GLF?

Answer 36

‘Four pests’ campaign targeting flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows.

Question 37

How did children react to the challenge of carrying out the ‘Four pests’ campaign?

Answer 37

Took it up although when sparrows were, eventually, substituted with bed bugs this was met with less enthusiasm.

Question 38

When were sparrows replaced by bed bugs in the ‘Four pests’ campaign?

Answer 38

1960

Question 39

Who had the best treatment in China?

Answer 39

Urban workers in large industrial enterprises

Question 40

How was the hospital treatment like in cities?

Answer 40

Hospitals staffed by trained doctors but most care was administered at a lower level.

Question 41

At what lower level was patient care provided by in rural areas?

Answer 41

Patient care provided by village health centres

Question 42

Describe extent of change in healthcare, overall.

Answer 42

Even though government spending on health was never sufficient to fulfil the hopes of the party, overall there were significant improvements in health over the period

Question 43

What was a significant improvement in health due to the government spending on it?

Answer 43

Life expectancy
Infant mortality rates fell.

Question 44

How did life expectancy improve?

Answer 44

1950 = 41-years-old
1970 = 62-years-old

Question 45

What was done in response to the threat of germ warfare from America during the Korean War?

Answer 45

Campaign against germs