In the path of the trailblazing barefoot doctors

Nowadays the healthcare workers can even provide regular antenatal care and prescribe a much wider range of medicines.

Wugyan Tsering says that those working in medicine in the township are relatively well paid, but it is still difficult to retain such talent. Of 10 of his classmates when he did a medical internship in Kunming 20 years ago, only three remain in the field, and he is the only one working in the countryside, he says.

After graduating from secondary health school in 2001 he was unemployed for a year, then worked in a pharmacy for two years, and then in the ticket center of a nearby tourism spot for seven years.

He then returned to medicine, spurred by a local government policy aimed at tackling the shortage of rural doctors.