Discourse / Discours : Primary Health Care: Then and Now

Abstract

The term primary health care is now entrenched in our minds and our actions. A health for all by the year 2000 strategy is being examined to determine what has been achieved and what has not. All countries and most professions, including nursing, are scrutinizing the progress they have made towards achieving PHC. It is my intention, in this discourse, to move from an historical view to present-day concerns as they relate to the achievement of PHC. It will be impossible to do more than mention many of the latter, but I hope to set the stage for the articles that follow in this issue of the Journal. Historical Perspective Nursing has been involved in the development of PHC from the beginning. Concerns about the state of basic health care surfaced in 1973 (World Health Organization [WHO], 1973), when alarming states of health and vast gaps in health services for populations in developing countries were identified. An Expert Committee on Community Health Nursing was convened to recommend ways in which nursing might make a real impact on urgent problems throughout the world (WHO, 1974). The Committee made recommendations on: (1) the development of community health nursing services responsive to community needs in order to ensure PHC coverage for all, (2) the reformulation of basic and post-basic nursing education to prepare nurses for community health nursing, and (3) the inclusion of nursing in rational distribution and appropriate utilization in support of nursing personnel.