Primary Health Practice: Analysing Project Piaxtla from a Participatory Planning Approach

Running head: PRIMARY HEALTH PRACTICE
Primary health practice
Name of the student
University name
Author’s note

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PRIMARY HEALTH PRACTICE
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................2
Background................................................................................................................................2
Analysing the Project Piaxtla from a participatory planning approach:................................4
Discussion of participatory planning approach..........................................................................4
Rural inclusion and empowerment though Project Piaxtla........................................................5
Critical analysis of the project....................................................................................................6
Barriers faced in the implementation of the project...................................................................8
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................8
References............................................................................................................................10

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PRIMARY HEALTH PRACTICE
Introduction
The current study focuses upon the aspect of primary healthcare and strengthening
some of its resources for providing improved care and support services to the rural and the
marginalised people. It has been found that most of the times the people living in the poor
and downtrodden sections are deprived of the basic health and support care services as most
of the healthcare workers do not feel like visiting those areas due to the lack of effective
transport or connectivity. Additionally, the socio cultural as well as the language differences
also create barriers to the equal distribution of the health and support care services. It has
been found that some of the people living in the poor or the marginalised areas come from
indigenous background and communicate in an altogether different language.
The language difference can further create the differences in the quality of the support
and healthcare services delivered. Additionally, the lack of medical interpreters in most of the
regions makes receiving the healthcare services further difficult for the patients. Therefore,
the development of the primary healthcare practices can re-enforce rural health development.
This is further dependent upon the steps taken by the Government which are aimed towards
providing maximum healthcare resources to the rural population or the underprivileged
section at cost effective prices.
Background
The PROJECT PIAXTLA is rural primary health care program operational in
Western Mexico. It was named after a nearby river and located at the foothills of the Sierra
Madre Mountain Range. Piaxtla was started to serve the largely populated sated of Sinaola in
the 1960s. The program was started in Ajoya village which was one of the largest villages
within the Piaxtla area of coverage. David Werner has been involved with the program as a
facilitator and an advisor. The project Piaxtla was developed on the guidelines of making the

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PRIMARY HEALTH PRACTICE
residents of the village self sufficient by providing them as well as educating them about
health care methods and approaches. However, the economic crisis in the 1990s as an
aftermath of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) created a huge bridge
between the rich and the poor. It further resulted in discrepancies within the health and
support care services. The economic crisis accompanied by civil disharmony within the
Ajoya village where thefts, assaults and murders were common on a day – to – day basis
made survival difficult over there. As mentioned by Hall et al. (2017), the civil disharmony
made many people fled from the village of Ajoya and the surrounding regions due which the
project Piaxtla almost came to a dead end. As argued by Hopwood (2015), there has been
recent rise in activities such as drugging and trafficking of drug, which made the region
unsafe for people to exist, as a result many people left the region.
There has been a gradual evolution in the strategies of Piaxtla from curative care to
social action. Here, the improvement in health was brought about in three phases. In the
earliest stage, it had no political agenda and only focussed upon providing immediate cure to
the people. The village health advocates were trained using participatory learning approaches.
By the end of these programs they grew sufficiently competent in dealing with the common
illness and injuries (Hall et al. 2017). However, a gradual recurrence pattern was seen in the
illnesses. Therefore, the goal was to shift from curative mode of care to preventive mode of
care. Here, the main focus was given on improving the water and sanitation systems, as it
was found that most of the villagers did not use proper sanitation techniques as well as they
did not have proper access to safe and clean drinking water. Due to the success of the
program the under five mortality rate in children due to common illnesses such as measles,
whooping cough, polio was reduced by drastic rates. However , the problem persisted in a
certain section of the poor children without proper home and family and were often taken
advantage of by the wealthy section of the society. Therefore, the goal of the program was