What Is Primary Healthcare and How Does It Affect You?

What is Primary Healthcare?

Refers to essential healthcare that is based on scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology. This makes universal health care accessible to all individuals and families in a community.

It promotes health and wellness. Its about more than delivering health care services, it’s about creating conditions that help people to become and stay healthy and well. Its all about extending the reach of health providers into communities.

Who are primary health care providers?

Those who see people that have common medical problems, this person is most often a doctor, however a primary care provider may be a physician assistant, or a nurse practitioner.

PHC is not a jamboree. There are real measurable outcomes especially in the prevention of both communicable and NCD’s (noncommunicable) diseases.

It is apparent that there isn’t enough knowledge about the purpose of primary health care and this is leading to abuse of the service. Where preventative measures could have been put in place, there is neglect, leading to a more chronic situation down the line. As the saying goes: ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.

My Advocacy is therefore that the population needs to be informed and educated about the value of primary healthcare.

On the other hand, the patients need to be more curious about their healthcare services. We need to ask our doctors more questions about our treatment.

Overall for us to become a healthier people we need to become more engaged with the systems already in place, starting with the primary system of healthcare.