Application of Primary Health Care Principles – Asha Case Study

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Individual Reflection
Application of Primary Health Care Principles – Asha Case Study
Principles of Primary Health Care (PHC) are important in implementing essential health care to
all people in a community. The PHC refer to a health care approach that provides essential health
through socially acceptable and scientifically sound methods making health care accessible to all
people (Valentijn et al., 2013). PHC principles include equity, participation, multi-sectoral
collaboration, and health system integration. The following write up is a discussion on how
principles of PHC apply to Asha project of transforming lives in the slums of Delhi a case study
done by a small group that I participated.
The first principle that applies in the case study is participatory. Community participation
involves all community resources being used to promote and address health care issues at grass
root level. The Asha program had active participation from all community members. This
participation enhanced the involvement of all community members in decision making. The
community was divided into several groups where each member would be able to participate
both in making the decision and taking action. The groups included Mahila Mandal and Bal
Mandal. The groups got empowered by informing member about women rights. The women
became the main decision makers and were able to initiate and own change.
The second principle of PHC that apply to the case study is equity. Equity is the accessibility,
affordability, and availability of health care services being equal to all people in the society
irrespective of their location, ethnicity, age, or gender. Before the Asha program, girls were
treated different from boys. Girls were given different food from boy (Balarajan, Selvaraj, and
Subramanian, 2011). Asha empowered women by education, medicine and health care and
people were able to understand there is no difference and they started treating both genders the
same. The Asha program has therefore enhanced equity in the Delphi slums community by
advocating against gender discrimination.
The third principle of PHC applied in the case study is health sector integration. Health sector
integration involves management and organization of health care services that people are able to
get care they need, when needed, in user-friendly and desirable results can be achieved while