A prescription for nomadic health

Temperatures trough around－25 C and winter lasts 10 months.

A big change in early 2013 was that the prefecture and county government sent real doctors to the village.

But medical workers, permanent or temporary, are stretched thin, Quezhubtsering says.

Only three of the clinic's eight permanent medical workers graduated from medical universities.

Others are nomadic volunteers with 5-yuan monthly stipends.

"They can read and write but don't know medicine," Quezhubtsering says.

"I wish they could study somewhere."

Quezhubtsering is the only full-time doctor.

There are two smaller private village clinics with experienced pharmacists. Workers are unsalaried but earn money through medicine sales.

Most villagers go to the private clinics for diagnoses and to the township clinic for medicine, where they can get reimbursements.

But students are covered for free, Quezhubtsering says.

Still, the medical workers also need to study－and the clinic needs coal, he says.

"We realize nomads are low-income and their children need to go to school," Quezhubtsering explains.

"Education and health are inseparable."