Lesson 3-How successful were the changes made to health provision? Flashcards
Epidemic
Widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.
Barefoot doctors
Paramedics sent to rural areas to provide basic healthcare
What are parasitic diseases?
Organisms that live off other organisation, or hosts, to survive.
Example of parasitic diseases.
Schistoscomiasis-deadly disease carried by snails
Cholera
An infectious and often fatal bacterial disease of the small intestine, typically contracted from infected water supplies and causing severe vomiting and diarrhoea
Dysentery
Infection of the intestines resulting in severe diarrhoea with the presence of blood and mucus in the faeces.
Patriotic Health Campaign
Propaganda drives to explain the importance of hygiene and the link between dirt and disease.
Typhoid
Infectious bacterial fever with an eruption of red spots on the chest and abdomen and severe intestinal irritation.
Why were doctors being attacked under the CR?
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
What were doctors accused of not learning?
‘Dignity of labour’
What did doctors have to do to their medical considerations?
Give them lesser importance compare to political considerations
Since doctors did not give their medical considerations as much importance as their political ones, what happened?
Produced absurdities e.g., surgeons cancelled operations in order to show their solidarity with the workers by sweeping floors and cleaning toilets.
What did some doctors decide about pain and bearing it?
Saw showing pain as a bourgeois reaction and that bearing things without flinching was a sign of revolutionary purpose
What would doctors do as a result of their ideas around pain and bearing it?
No longer used anaesthetics and analgesics e.g., denied women in labour any painkillers
Despite Mao unfairly criticising the medical profession on political grounds, what did he remain aware of?
The propaganda value of effective health provision
When was a crash programme introduced for training doctors?
Late 1960s
What did the crash programme for training doctors involve?
Based on short practical courses.
Trainees would have a 6 month intensive study with emphasis on practicals.
Why was the crash programme intended to be short?
It was believed that it was the long period of academic study of doctors that made them detach from the people
What would doctors do once the short training course was completed?
Were sent to work among peasants
Was the short course training of doctors a success?
Yes
By 1973, how many new doctors had been trained due to the crash programme?
Over a million
What did barefoot doctors contribute to?
Improvements of the lives of the peasants
How much did it cost for a barefoot doctor?
Worked free of charge
In what type of condition did the barefoot doctors often perform their minor miracles?
Primitive
What could barefoot doctors not do?
Provide the full national medical service that a modern state needed.
What were there high hopes to do in regards to healthcare?
Extend it to everyone
What was launched to explain the importance of hygiene?
Patriotic health movements/ campaigns
What was there on emphasis on and over in regards to diseases?
Prevention rather than cure
Why was there an emphasis on prevention not cure?
There was a serious shortage of hospital facilities and of trained doctors and nurses.
How was there able to be some successes in reducing the death rate from waterborne diseases (Cholera)?
Encouraged digging of deeper well for obtaining drinking water.
Promoted more careful disposal of human waste in pits away from home
What was a major cause of disease concerning farming?
Using human waste (night soil) as a source of fertiliser in the fields
What was done to prevent disease from human waste fertiliser?
The practice was discouraged
What was there a campaign about snails for?
To educate the peasantry about the need to control the snails that spread schistosmiasis, a serious abnormal infection responsible for many deaths.
How were the health-care reforms successful?
Smallpox, cholera, typhus and typhoid fever was practically eliminated.
What happened to swamps that spread malaria?
Were drained
What health-care campaign was taken up during the GLF?
‘Four pests’ campaign targeting flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows.
How did children react to the challenge of carrying out the ‘Four pests’ campaign?
Took it up although when sparrows were, eventually, substituted with bed bugs this was met with less enthusiasm.
When were sparrows replaced by bed bugs in the ‘Four pests’ campaign?
1960
Who had the best treatment in China?
Urban workers in large industrial enterprises
How was the hospital treatment like in cities?
Hospitals staffed by trained doctors but most care was administered at a lower level.
At what lower level was patient care provided by in rural areas?
Patient care provided by village health centres
Describe extent of change in healthcare, overall.
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
What was a significant improvement in health due to the government spending on it?
Life expectancy
Infant mortality rates fell.
How did life expectancy improve?
1950 = 41-years-old
1970 = 62-years-old
What was done in response to the threat of germ warfare from America during the Korean War?
Campaign against germs
