'Barefoot doctors' from a small Chinese town now control 80% of China's private hospitals

It all started when “doctors” with no proper medical training from the coastal town of Putian in Fujian province posted outdoor ads offering to treat people too embarrassed to go to public hospitals for proper treatment for venereal diseases. Three decades later, and the Putian natives – who are commonly known as the Putian Gang– control more than 80 per cent of the mainland’s private hospitals, and have close ties with military medical centres. That network is now at the centre of all...