Primary Health Care: Role and Functions

ABSTRACT

Primary Health Care (PHC) can be defined as the health care availed and accessed to individuals and their families in a particular community; through strategies/interventions that are acceptable to and affordable by the concerned target population. Such health care; as defined; must be broad-based and integrated in approach. It must recognise the interactions among the factors that influence health and give due consideration to these factors and points of interaction. Take; for example; water sources and environmental sanitation; these two factors are closely related and at the sametime affect health together. Diseases such as typhoid; trachoma and malaria are directly related to water supply and basic sanitation. Effective care against these diseases calls for involvement of hospital; health centre and dispensary staff in addition to the community. Teams addressing such diseases comprise of doctors; nurses; administrators; to mention but a few. This illustrates the broad-based nature and intergrated approaches in PHC. Experts in the subject have summarised the desired approaches of PHC into four pillars