Abstract
This paper argues that Sri Lanka's primary health care program succeeded in reducing mortality and promoting health in the early twentieth century as it tackled the most serious health problems across the country with the help of local communities. The early achievements in health were sustained by broad-based social welfare measures adopted by successive governments since political independence in 1948. This was the key strategy of the selective primary care promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation. Keywords: Selective primary care; health units; Kalutara; Rockefeller Foundation DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/gmj.v16i2.3749 GMJ 2011; 16(2): 24-30
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates primary health care as the key to promoting health in developing countries
The community-based health unit program in Sri Lanka was an earlier version of the selective primary health care developed by the International Health Board (IHB) of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sri Lankan public health experts in the early twentieth century, which later became an integral part of the overall welfare strategy
Unlike the comprehensive primary health care advocated by the WHO, the health unit program restricted itself to the most serious health problems in the community, and attacked their root causes by using available techniques and the local resources
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates primary health care as the key to promoting health in developing countries. International non-governmental organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation suggested that comprehensive primary health care would be prohibitively costly to implement for most nations(3). Instead, it recommended a relatively inexpensive selective primary care program that could deal with most widespread infectious diseases in developing countries (4). The community-based health unit program in Sri Lanka was an earlier version of the selective primary health care developed by the International Health Board (IHB) of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sri Lankan public health experts in the early twentieth century, which later became an integral part of the overall welfare strategy. The community support was deemed vital for the work that until sufficient public support was evident a community would not be considered ready for health unit work
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