Often without anywhere near the resources found in the big cities, rural medical professionals must go the extra mile to make sure that people receive adequate services to survive and hopefully flourish.

In 2002, in a bid to shorten the distance local children have to travel to receive treatment, as most live more than 20 kilometers away from the hospital, Huang set up several temporary vaccination clinics in places near their homes. He has made it part of his job to offer vaccination services in villages ever since.

According to a report on rural medical care status quo released by Fujian provincial government recently, there are still a lot of remote rural places like Bunyun town, whose medical center only has three doctors or less.

But good news is that the government is continuously investing in rural areas such as Bunyun town to address the plight in all sides, such as rolling out schemes to encourage more medical professionals to work in rual areas.

A medical care system that distributes medical resources more fairly between urban and rural areas might be a long-term approach to ease the workloads of Huang Yaoling and his colleagues.

That being said, Huang hopes that one day in the future he might be able to sleep a little easier knowing there are more people out there just like him.

Huang Yaoling (left), treks across mountains to offer door-to-door medical services for the villagers in Bunyun town, Fujian province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]