Enhancing participatory efforts towards self-reliant health care in rural India: the role of women
John, H.
Proceedings of international conference on Primary Health Care and People' s Movement, Cholburi, Thailand, 23-28 February 1986: 36-41
1986
Document Number: 310781
The health care system in India is not designed to serve the needs of the majority of the population, the rural poor. Recognizing this, the voluntary sector has made community participation at all levels a prime consideration of programme implementation. Pre-primary care is community based health care which fills the need before primary care is sought and which uses resources available at the community level. It is based on the premise that even the illiterate, landless poor have a fund of life experiential knowledge. Its main features are: (1) existing popular knowledge is recognized and valued; (2) new knowledge is built on existing knowledge; (3) not only health workers, but the whole community is trained; (4) it becomes a collective process; (5) it creates informed options. An experiment in community medicine in a remote and impoverished area of southern India over the past 17 years is described. The main reason for using this alternative approach is based on cost, with accessibility and availability being other relevant factors. It is concluded that there is a large and significant part to be played by NGOs in this movement towards self reliant health care through programmes designed with maximum community participation and working towards bringing health knowledge back to the communities.