Resumo de A Village Health Care Handbook

Village Care Workers: ?A Village care worker is a person who helps lead family and neighbors toward better health. Often he or she has been selected by the other villages as someone who is especially able and kind. Some village health workers receive training and help from an organized program, perhaps the Ministry of Health. Others have no official position, but are simply members of the community whom people respect as healers or leaders in matters of health. Often they learn by watching, helping and studying on their own. In the larger sense. a village health workers is anyone who takes part in making his village a healthier place to live. This means almost everyone can and should be a health workers: mothers and fathers can show their children how to keep clean; farm people can work together to help their land produce more food; teachers can teach schoolchildren how to prevent and treat many common sicknesses and injuries; schoolchildren can share what they learn with their parents; shopkeepers can find out about the correct use of medicines they sell and give sensible advice and warning to buyers?; midwives can counsel parents about the importance of eating well during pregnancy, breast feeding, and family planning?.health needs. But to help your village be a healthy place to live, you must also be in touch with their human needs. Your understanding and concern for people are just as important as your knowledge of medicine and sanitation. Here are some suggestions that may help you serve your people?s human needs as well as health needs:1. Be Kind. A friendly word, a smile, a hand on the shoulder, or some other sign of caring often means more than anything else you can do. Treat others as your equals. Even when you are hurried or worried, try to remember the feelings and needs of others. Often it helps to ask yourself, ?What would I do if this were a member of my own family?? Treat the sick as people. Be especially kind to those who are very sick or dying. And be kind to their families. Let them see that you care.2. Share your knowledge. As a health workers, your first job is to teach. This means helping people learn more about how to keep from getting sick. It also means helping people learn how to recognize and manage their illnesses, including the sensible use of home remedies and common medicines. There is nothing you have learned that, if carefully explained, should be of danger to anyone. Some doctors talk about self care as if it were dangerous, perhaps because they like people to depend on their costly services. But in truth, most common health problems could be handled earlier and better by people in their own homes. Because you learn something about modern medicine does not mean you should no longer appreciate the customs and ways of healing of your people. Too often the human touch in the art of healing is lost when medical science moves in. This is too bad, because?<3> If you can use what is best in modern medicine, together with what is best in traditional healing, the combination may be better than either one alone. In this way, you will be adding to your people?s culture, not taking away. Of course, if you see that some of the home cures or customs are harmful?you will want to do something to change this. But do so carefully, with respect for those who believe in such things. Never just tell people they are wrong. Try to help them understand WHY they should do something differently. People are slow to change their attitudes and traditions, and with good reason. They are true to what they feel is right. And this we must respect. Modern medicine does not have all the answers either. It has helped solve some problems, yet has led to other, sometimes even bigger ones. People quickly come to depend too much on modern medicine and its experts, to overuse medicines, and to forge how to care for themselves and each other. So go slow?and always keep a deep respect for your people, their traditions, and their human dignity. Help them build on the knowledge and skills they already have. No matter how great or small your knowledge and skills, you can do a good job as long as you know and work within your limits. This means?

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