Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia.

  • Southern Rhodesia. Department of Health.
Date:
[1937]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the public health / Southern Rhodesia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/74 (page 2)
    the face of some condition which he considers is beyond his own skill. Further, it is the policy of this Department to provide opportunities for every new entrant to the Medical Service to learn in the hospitals and laboratories of the country the particular illnesses which are commonly found here, so that on his appointment to an outside area even the newest recruit to the Medical Service has already had the opportunity of making himself familiar, under the tuition of more experienced officers, with the conditions with which he is likely to be faced in the practice of his profession in rural areas. For these reasons I feel compelled to appeal to the communities in rural areas to display more confidence in the local medical man and to make a greater use of his professional knowledge and advice than they have hitherto done. II. Health of the Native. The year has shown steady consolidation of the Native Clinic system and the wide basis on which it has been formed and directed has been amply justified in practice. In fact the clinics are almost embarrassingly popular and despite the extraordinarily low cost per patient per day it is obvious that the expense of maintenance of these and future units will become an increasingly important section of public health finance. Already we are beginning to feel the shortage of trained native personnel and there is not the slightest doubt but that the indigenous African in training at Salisbury and Bulawayo will be absorbed without any difficulty for many years to come. It is fitting that the indigenous native shall take his place in the framework of medical services for his own kith and kin and it is hoped that when provision has been made for their training that the native women will be spurred by the example of the men. It should always be remembered that women entered the field of sick nursing after the men all through the ages, but it must also be admitted that nursing only made progress when the women of the country took up the profession and brought the feminine qualities of gentleness and graciousness to its ministration. Another matter requiring careful thought has been the siting of native clinics inasmuch as these must be easy of access by an all-weather road in order to enable regular visits to be made by the medical man in charge of the institution. This is an essential factor in the success of any clinic for without regular medical supervision, these institutions would readily lose in efficiency and indeed might easily become the centres of undesirable practices. These arduous extra duties, often involving many hours of motoring on veld roads, have been willingly undertaken by the Government Medical Officers, and the visits to the clinics have been so arranged as not to interfere greatly with the medical officers’ function of furnishing a “ general practitioner ” service in outlying districts. In some areas, though, it is doubtful if much more native clinic work can be undertaken without interfering with the delicate relationship between the doctor and his European patients. I hope to see these clinics assuming, in addition to their curative function, a broader health relationship to the people they serve. I look forward to the day when each clinic will be the fountain-head of knowledge of ante-natal and child welfare work, sanitation, nutrition, housing, personal and communal hygiene. For this reason it is intended that the preventive aspects of native medical work will be stressed from the outset and clinics so sited that they will be able to bring their beneficent influence to bear upon the community as well as upon the individual. III. Treatment or Prevention—which shall it be ? A great proportion of institutional and domiciliary illness is preventable and it is obvious from advances in medical and allied sciences that the proportion of sickness which can be prevented will increase. It must be freely admitted that the European medical services in the first half century of the country’s civilised history lias been preoccupied with the curative aspect of medicine so that to-day we have buildings, equipment and staff unsurpassed by those of any other country similarly situated. On the preventive side, however, pro¬ gress has not been so steady and satisfactory. Prevention is neither exciting nor spectacular, and the assets of prevention are largely invisible; there are