Matters of the heart out in the countryside

She views it as part of their work to raise villagers' health awareness and the ability to help relatives in emergencies, as is required by a system covering rural areas throughout the country in which a family physician is designated to serve particular people.

The doctors are required to track the physical well-being of those they serve, especially the poor, the aged, the pregnant, the disabled and children, as well as patients of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and mental disorders.

The underprivileged people there would have 90 percent of their medical fees covered by health insurance, and the rest can be sponsored by the government if they could not afford it, Tashi Nyima says.

It has been two years since the system started running there. Local medical workers are divided into groups, usually comprising a licensed general practitioner, a nurse and two village health workers. Each group of family physicians serves a single village as a complement to the regular medical work they do.

The family physicians, on call to make house visits around the clock, have built a highly reliable health safety net for rural dwellers.

Rheumatism, hypertension and heart diseases are some of the common diseases in the plateau region with relatively cold weather, says Wugyan Tsering, 41, a local doctor.

He often visits patients in the countryside at night, even having to wait for an infusion to be completed before returning immediately to start his work in the township's health center the next day.

It was not until last year that local doctors could have a regular day off every week, he says, earlier only having been able to have a day off after completing a night shift.