Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 168

causes of ill health, and the dangers of over-medication with potentially harmful
and expensive drugs. Both the saheen and the jidaat are encouraged to see their
role as being one of service to the community and to act as health promoters by
giving advice on hygiene and better nutrition. They are also taught how to use
a limited range of basic drugs and prepare other appropriate treatments such as
simple oral rehydration fluid.(451
In some ways, it would be a simpler task to import new health workers whose
attitudes have been entirely formed by the principles of modern primary health
care. After visiting the project, Dr. Lusty, OXFAM's Medical Adviser,
commented: "A case can be made for ignoring the saheen and concentrating on
training a new cadre but to do this is to ignore the situation as it stands. The saheen
are carrying the main burden of health care in the rural areas: anything that can
be done to raise the standard of their work will have immediate results.''(46) This
is as true of the traditional healers in one mountain area of North Yemen, as it
is of local healers responding to the needs of communities throughout the Third
World.
In the next chapter we look at other positive and imaginative schemes to improve
the health of local communities, and provide them with basic modern drugs.

128