Appropriate health care manual (AHCM) refers to a manual regarding health care which is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the community it is intended for. In practice, appropiate health care can be set up using a mix of isolation, vaccination, phytotherapy and surgery. Phytotherapy can be used to treat smaller health problems and common diseases, while surgery can be used to treat serious injuries.

Set up

Before being able to determine the cause of the disease or malady, accurate diagnosis is required. This may be done manually (through observation, inquiries) and by specialised tools. For this, villagers can be trained and can then monitor other villagers for maladies. Trained villagers have shown to be able to eliminate 80% of the health problems in other projects. Small (low-cost) hospitals - based on the model of the Jamkhed hospital – can remedy another 15%, while only 5% will need to go to a larger (more expensive) hospitals.

Isolation

The best method to stay healthy is simply to avoid any possible contact with pathogens. Besides having set up the correct sanitation systems, ... mentioned in the Appropriate living manual, we also take additional precautions. These precautions include reduce interaction with anyone that has gotten a malady, wearing sufficient clothing in areas when pathogen carrying insects are known to sting (eg mosquito's carrying malaria, tse tse fly, ...). Also, insect repelling plants/sprays are a form of isolation.[1]

Vaccination

Vaccination is another important issue in appropriate health care. Vaccination falls within 2 categories: Fundamental vaccinations and Repeating vaccinations. More information is available at Appropriate health care manual 3

Phytotherapy

Köppen climate classification.png

Herbalist medicines can be taken as tinctures, tisanes, decoctions, ... . They can be freely made at home and are almost as effective as their chemical counterparts. A previous program that made use of herbal medicine was the Barefoot doctor program.

  • Exterior antiseptic medicine (treatment of burns, skin infections, boils, ...)
  • Treatment of mouth problems (tooth ache, Aphthous ulcers, ...)
  • Wound treatment and skin rehydration
  • Ear treatment medicines
  • Eye treatment medicines
  • Treatment of respiratory problems
  • Treatment of fever (colds, ...)
  • Digestion relaxing medicines (stomach, intestins)
  • Medicines promoting blood circulation (against clogged and or showing veins, headaches, ...)
  • Sterilisation medicines
  • Plants hindering pain receptors (eg against headaches, pain of wounds, ...)
  • Plants inducing sleep
  • Medicines promoting detoxification (blood purification, sweat inducing plants, diuretics, ...)

The exact medicinal herb best used per group, depends on the location on earth. The herb needs to be chosen based on the Köppen climate. Also, if non-indiginous herbs are used, precautions need to be taken to prevent the spread of the plant into the environment. This could eg be done by using plants that no longer produce fertile seed. The size of the herb plantations can be kept small by constant harvesting and processing of the plants (eg into eg tinctures, ... which keep indefinitly).

Notes

Regarding the herb groups Note that wound treatment is on a different section than the treatment of skin infections, ... this is because the first is a oil/creamish substance (prone to attracting bacteria/infections) and the second is desinfectant alone (not prone to attracting bacteria but with slower skin regeneration properties). Respiration and fever may be combined but most plants work either on 1 of the 2, so perhaps this is best left as is. Sterilisation can be done by smoking the body with Erythrophleum chlorostachyum, or by consuming plant substance of cymbidium madidum, petalostigma pubescens, Eucalyptus gamophylla. Headaches may be aleviated by 2 types of medicine, one working on the root cause and another simply disabling the pain receptors. Some references need to be found first, I made division based on the book "Bush food:Aboriginal food and herbal medicine by Jennifer Isaacs", and modified it based on own experiences/knowledge The plant examples can be placed in section as examples, full List of plants used as medicine article need to be modified too.

Surgery

Surgery can be performed in small (low-cost) hospitals based on the model of the Jamkhed hospital.

Advantages

Compared to the use of professionally schooled doctors, this set-up is far less costly and has proven to be most appropriate.[2] Also, in the developing world, most doctors tend to leave to first world countries, thus meaning that in most developing countries, no doctors are still present; hereby making the hiring of alternative employees a more suitable option.

Also, as a great deal of medicine can be simply extracted from herbs, there is a great ecological advantage aswell, as no chemcial drugs no longer need to be made.

See also

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