Africa's Bare Foot Doctors!

December 13-2008:

Africa's Bare Foot Doctors:

A bare foot doctor is someone who performs some of the basic functions that a qualified medical doctor would perform. Some of these are the following:

* Taking a patient's pulse rate, heart beat, blood test, throat swabbing, and some other forms of intravenous testing or vaccination.

In Africa, like so many developing countries or states, bare foot doctors are the Local Health Care visitors or Midwives. Who invariably are employed by the state or regional clinics, to deal with patients who need basic health care services like child birth, some emergencies, vaccinations of new born infants, and some overall health checkups. When or if they recognise any malady that they feel warrants serious qualified medical attention by a qualified doctor. These midwives or bare foot doctors advise their patients to go to the nearest clinic or hospital, where a qualified doctor or physician can be accessed.

In most African States, there is a dire need for qualified doctors to service rural and interior regions. Most of the population in the rural regions are aunble to access qualified health care services, or even a local hospital, with the necessary equipment for proper health care needs. Residents in those regions have to travel for several miles on foot, bicycles, or horse drawn carts, to get to these clinics. Most do not go when they fall ill, because they cannot afford to pay taxi or car fares to get there. So most stay at home and consult with the traditional medicine healers.

These faith or medicine healers over the decades, were the only ones who dealt with the local or tribal sick. And sometines their medicines work positively, at other times the patients die after taking those medicines. But these tribal or ethnic healers will continue to play these health care roles, until some governmental programs are put in place to cater to the needs, of the rural poor and economically dis-enfranchised.

In Uganda today, like so many other African countries, malaria is ravishing the people on a grave scale. And the government is financially strapped for cash to provide the medicines to deal with this malady. So thosusands die from malaria, coupled with other ailments like HIV, hunger, and cholera. Some foreign financial assistance is being given to some African countries from The World Health Org., but getting the medications to regional locations, without the necessary qualified personnel to administer to the needs of these people, is very perplexing indeed.

Derryck.
NYC.