Front line health workers (8)
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Source: Ahila-net@who.ch
Message to Margaret Mathai
Dear Margaret,
You've brought our several interesting points about barriers to good
use of information by FLHWs (front-line health workers), some of
which have been made to me here too by some young and some older doc-
tors, along with a couple of others:-
1. It is widely conceded that current crops of young doctors are be-
ing sent out to the rural areas without receiving adequate train-
ing in practical clinical procedures or management of common
clinical problems.
2. It takes some self-confidence to be seen to look things up. ("I'll
lose my private patients if they see me consulting a book - once
you're qualified you're supposed to know everything", was what one
young hospital doctor, who also ran a private practice, told us
recently). Many young doctors lack this confidence.
3. Hospital doctors work under pressure, and often have no time to
dig out information that isn't immediately available in the right
format and at the right level.
4. The basic "how do I do it" information that they need is not
available in books. In any case, the information sources - books,
manuals, leaflets - aren't available at their hospitals. Often, if
the information is there, it is locked away and inaccessible.
5. Medical practice among the poor in the rural areas is not a voca-
tion for most young doctors, and many may indeed, as Margaret sug-
gests, be busy planning for other careers rather than working at
improving their skills as FLHWs.
We can try to provide basic information that is quickly accessible
and simple to use, and cheap too, so each health worker can own his
own sources of reference material, and have instant access to it.
But it looks as if perhaps some of these problems also need to be
recognised and addressed by the teachers of our future doctors and
nurses - such barriers can have very serious results for patients.
Helga Patrikios
Deputy University Librarian, Medical Librarian
University of Zimbabwe
P.O. Box M.P. 45, Mount Pleasant
Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel: +263-4-791631
Fax: +263-4-795019
mailto:patrikios@healthnet.zw
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