The Demand for Primary Health Services in the Third World

JAMA ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 254 (21) ◽  
pp. 3111
Author(s):  
David Hemenway
1986 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Akin ◽  
David K. Guilkey ◽  
Charles C. Griffin ◽  
Barry M. Popkin

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 442
Author(s):  
Yvonne M. Vissing ◽  
John S. Akin ◽  
David K. Guilkey ◽  
Charles C. Griffin ◽  
Barry M. Popkin

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Gish

The development of health and family planning services in Bangladesh is examined in the context of the country's political economy. Inequities of power, influence, opportunity, and the ownership and distribution of assets and income are seen to lie at the root of the “Bangladesh crisis.” In this, the country is not unlike many others in the Third World, only more so. The internal and external pressures which have contributed to a coercive attitude toward the problem of too rapid population growth are discussed. The allocation of Bangladeshi health service resources is examined in terms of expenditure, manpower, and facilities; they are found to be both inequitably distributed and inefficiently applied. Some alternatives to present patterns of development are touched upon. It is concluded that despite the country's poverty, most people do not have to go without basic primary health care (including family planning), which can be afforded even by countries as economically impoverished as Bangladesh.


2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabiul Ahasan ◽  
Timo Partanen ◽  
Lee Keyoung

Western nations and international financiers are usually the donors for most of the Third World countries. International funds allocated for development projects in these nations are under control of such groups, in which global corporate policy, bureaucracy, and neo-liberalization play a major role. International financiers also bias the socio-political, environmental, local administration, and even public health policy of the poor nations. Financial packages are usually sanctioned, distributed, and reimbursed under strict terms and conditions that Third World nations must heed and agree to with the fundamental commitment to change accordingly. Obviously, these terms and conditions are complicated for local governmental authorities. In most of the implementation phase of a project supported by foreign loan/aid, the efficient features of their own or the donors may be reflected, while the proposal and prospects for the actual benefits are left to the local populace. Cutting government spending and neglecting the benefits to poor people, global capitalism maintains corporate policy that may also focus on the goals of profit making instead of public benefit. As such, enhancing privatization, structural adjustments have been devised by the international financiers in many sectors. The reason is that private sectors must necessarily comply with the market dynamics of free choice and with the belief that it could be more efficient and equitable than the local government's action. It is thus important that healthcare professionals, government officials, and others solicit their opinions about international policy on privatization programs through a range of cost-benefit analyses. In order to identify and evaluate the negative effects of structural adjustment, this article comments on international policy for financing health services in the Third World.


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