North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has launched a program to attract medical graduates to work in rural areas to tackle an acute shortage of health care workers.

The region is home to many people of Mongolian ethnicity as well as people from other ethnic minority groups who make their living through grazing and animal husbandry.

Rural medical services are insufficient, although a program in effect since 2013 has provided on-the-job training for 12,000 medical workers.

A notice issued by the regional health department showed that only 9.3 percent of 20,633 health workers in service in rural areas are licensed medical practitioners.

Under the newly implemented policies, vocational-school medical students willing to work in rural areas after graduation will receive tuition waivers for all three years of their schooling and provided with subsidies for school accommodation.

The regional government hopes the program will help channel 10,000 assistant medical practitioners into village clinics over the next five years.

With 649,000 health centers across 589,000 villages, China is in desperate need of village doctors. But rural doctors are increasingly reluctant to stay at their jobs due to barriers such as low pay, a lack of prestige and little room for advancement.

In March, the State Council, China's cabinet, released a document calling for better treatment of village doctors. It ensures one doctor for every 1,000 rural residents, and stipulates that rural doctors are entitled to receive free extra training, better opportunities to further their education, preference in future promotions, along with higher pay and pensions.

(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2016)