COMMUNITY HEALTH TEAM

Abstract

... Today the health manpower situation leaves much to be desired as regards both quality and quantity. In the past, this problem has always prompted the same type of reaction; to step up the training of the "classical" types of health worker. It can be said with some certainty that to produce more of the same (usually disease- and hospital-oriented) type of health worker will not solve health service problems—nor, which is more important, the health problems of the people. During the past two or three decades, it has become abundantly clear that if we want to do something for the health of entire populations, and, even more important, if we want them to do the things necessary for their own health, we must leave the well-trodden paths. We must create new, well-planned services, staffed where necessary by new categories of health personnel, such as primary health workers and their mentors, with practitioners of traditional medicine as an important reserve. It is not enough, however, to develop new categories of health personnel. Every health worker—including part-time workers drawn from the community itself—should be equipped by training to serve on the community health team, ready to cope with people's priority health problems not only today and tomorrow but well into the future.