Primary Health Care

The route

Lessons are in the order that makes each one easier than the last. Each unit ends with a short quiz.

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   Unit 1

   Concept and Historical Development of Primary Health Care

   What primary health care really means, and the three global meetings that shaped it, from Alma-Ata to Astana.
   1. Definition of Primary Health CareFree Most of the health a nation enjoys is made far from the big hospitals. This is the idea that says so. 10 min
   3. The Alma-Ata Declaration (1978) Why health ministers from all over the world flew to a city in Soviet Central Asia, and what they promised there. 10 min
   4. The Bamako Initiative (1987) A clinic with no drugs is just a building. Here is how Africa tried to keep the shelves full. 9 min
   5. The Astana Declaration (2018) and Universal Health Coverage Forty years on, the world came back to Kazakhstan to renew a promise it had not yet kept. 10 min
   6. Unit 1 quiz6 questions on this unit 8 min
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   Unit 2 Full plan

   Principles and Components of Primary Health Care

   The rules that decide how PHC is delivered and the eight services it must deliver, plus the old argument about doing everything or a few things well.
   1. Principles of Primary Health Care Five rules that decide whether a health service is truly PHC or just a small hospital in a village. 11 min
   2. Components (Elements) of Primary Health Care Eight services that, done well together, prevent most of the deaths in a poor community. 10 min
   3. Comprehensive and Selective Primary Health Care Do everything Alma-Ata promised, or do a few cheap things very well first? The world argued about it for decades. 10 min
   4. Unit 2 quiz6 questions on this unit 8 min
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   Unit 3 Full plan

   Levels of Health Care and Levels of Prevention

   Who treats what, and where; and how to step into a disease's life story before, during and after it strikes.
   1. Levels of Health Care and the Referral System Why a headache should start at the health centre, and how a patient climbs to the teaching hospital only when needed. 10 min
   2. Natural History of Disease and Levels of Prevention Every disease has a life story. Prevention means interrupting it, and the chapter you interrupt decides the level. 10 min
   3. Primary Prevention The cheapest patient to treat is the one who never falls sick. Here is how PHC makes that happen. 10 min
   4. Secondary and Tertiary Prevention When prevention fails to stop a disease starting, it can still stop it winning. 12 min
   5. Unit 3 quiz6 questions on this unit 8 min
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   Unit 4 Full plan

   Primary Health Care in Nigeria

   How Nigeria took Alma-Ata home, from the 1975 scheme to the agency, the policy and the fund that run PHC today.
   1. Historical Development of Primary Health Care in Nigeria From a 1970s development plan to a law that sets aside money for every ward's health centre. 10 min
   2. Organisation of Primary Health Care in Nigeria Who does what, from the agency in Abuja down to the health post at the end of the road. 10 min
   3. Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR) When five different offices each own a piece of the same health centre, nobody owns the problem. PHCUOR was the fix. 10 min
   4. The Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) One per cent of the federal purse, sliced five ways, so that a ward health centre has drugs, staff and a working fridge. 11 min
   5. Unit 4 quiz6 questions on this unit 8 min
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   Unit 5 Full plan

   The Nurse, the PHC Team and the Community

   The people who deliver PHC, what the nurse does among them, and how to examine and involve a whole community.
   1. Community Health Workers and the PHC Team Most Nigerians who see a health worker this week will see one of these people, not a doctor. 10 min
   2. Role of the Nurse in Primary Health Care In PHC the nurse is clinician, teacher, manager, advocate and detective, sometimes all before lunch. 11 min
   3. Community Participation and Community Diagnosis Before you treat a community, you examine it, and you do it with the community, not to it. 13 min
   4. Unit 5 quiz6 questions on this unit 8 min

Practise and remember