Access to conventional and complementary medicine in a squatter area in Alexandria

ABSTRACT

WHO [1996] stated that access to health is everybody's right and the ethical basis of any country's health policy should be "Health for All". Meanwhile, there is a shift towards use of complementary and alternative medicine [CAM]. The reasons that people give for using CAM are diverse some perceive that conventional health care is ineffective, while others consider CAM to be more consistent with their own values and beliefs about health. This study aims at determining utilization of conventional and complementary medicine of a population sample in Ancient Abou Qir region. A household survey was conducted during the period of March till May 2004, covering a number of 337 houses. The total population sample amounted to 1480. Results revealed that 33.9% of the sample was not covered by health insurance. Majority of the sample [80.4%] had no governmental hospital admissions during the last 5 years, which was attributed to lack of confidence of services offered [47.6%], lack of resources [specialists, investigations and medication] [37.9%], and bad art of care [17.5%]. On the other hand, one-fourth of the sample [24.9%] utilized complementary medicine. Herbal therapy was the most commonly practiced method [88.1%], followed by cupping therapy [Hegama] [14.3%]. Based on the aforementioned findings, it is recommended to improve the quality of governmental hospital inpatient services, increase health insurance coverage as much as possible, and including CAM in medical and nursing curricula