MSc in Public Health. (360G-Wellcome-084059_Z_07_Z)

Lay health workers (LHWs) are increasingly being trained to look after primary health care and preventative programmes, because of local and political motivation to address health development needs. LHW programmes are seen as encompassing all of the Alma-Ata principles. Many terms have been used to describe LHW (e.g. community or village health workers). The definition of a LHW given in a recent Cochrane review is any health worker who performed functions related to health care delivery who was trained in some way in the context of the intervention, but had received no formal professional or paraprofessional certificate or tertiary education degree. This project focuses on the development of LHW programmes in South Africa, where the growth of these programmes coincided with the apartheid era and consisted mainly of local initiatives rather than a nationally developed plan. In the context of segregationist policies of the apartheid state (1948-1994), the health of black people was systematically undermined. The implementation of the Bantustan system where the Blacks in South Africa were forcibly segregated to the 'independent homelands', lead to poverty, repressive conditions, and a dearth of financial or political commitment to their health services. The department of health also became part of the oppressive apparatus of the State .