published by World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, December 05, 1995

BEIJING, Dec 4 (Reuter) - Nearly 54 percent of doctors in China's rural areas have only primary or junior middle school education and never had full medical training, the Guangming Daily said on Monday. The number of rural doctors rose to 930,000 by the end of 1994 from 770,000 in 1990 but many are underqualified, it said. A nationwide check by the Ministry of Public Health earlier this year found the medical knowledge of 60 percent of village doctors was that of a two - or three-year medical college student.

But it was easy for them to get full degree certificates, which should require five years of study. Every village in suburban Tianjin and Shanghai, two major cities in east China, has more than two doctors, but the average number of doctors in Tibetan villages is 0.37, with 76 percent of them only graduates of primary school, it said.

The newspaper blamed poor medical conditions in rural areas on shortages of money and bad management by local governments. The annual income of a doctor in remote mountainous areas is less than 600 yuan ($72) and the state does not finance county-level medical schools because they are not included in the state education programme, the newspaper said. County and town government chiefs are unwilling to train doctors because they are afraid that skilled village doctors would take business away from state-owned hospitals in county towns, it said.