A lesson from Kenya

I have not really commented on the current nurses' industrial dispute in the HSE - but there are interesting lessons to be learned from Kenya- yes it is a third world country in many ways , but I have seen real and increasingly successful attempts to provide primary health care, in a way that embraces sustainable community development. I met skilled health professionals who are living and working within their own communities, many with a commitment to developing quality services that is truly inspiring. One of the news soundbites tonight was that Ireland is like a third world country in terms of it's health services- I think that in fact we are not doing half as well as many third world countries who have realised that actually developing preventive and primary care services is the way to ensure that they get best value for their investment in health. We talk about reorienting the services to primary care but it seems that it is the hospitals that always get most attention. For many - both public and professional, plans for reorientation simply mean taking the interventions done in hospitals into the community instead of actually refocussing what we are delivering to address all of the determinants of health in a coherent and effective way.

www.healthintelligence.ie