Health manpower strategies for rural health services in India and China: 1949–1975

Abstract

The paper compares and contrasts health manpower strategies for rural health services in India and China. Three major issues areas are analysed in detail: (1) the duration and the nature of medical education, and the need to decentralize curative and public health tasks to para-professionals; (2)concentration of medical manpower in urban areas; (3) utilization of indegenous medicine practitioners in the regular public health network. The author has described the evolution of policies in each of these three issue areas, compared health manpower strategies, and brought out the implications of these strategies for birth control programmes.

The study concludes that until 1965, both countries faced similar problems in reorienting health services to rural needs. Since 1966, however, China has made a determined effort to bring rural-orientation in her health manpower policies. While the Indian policy makers are still following the “professional” model of rural health care, the Chinese have gone a long way in implementing a “populist” model in their countryside.