ABSTRACT
Primary health care is typically the first point of contact with the health care system for people. Although debates about PHC tend to orientate towards the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration the idea of PHC is not new. The Dawson Report, published in the UK, proposed the idea of primary health centres and Dawson himself was influenced by the idea of polyclinics first developed in the USSR after the Bolshevik Revolution. Largely for financial reasons, Dawson's idea of a network of health centres was never implemented. The health centre concept resurfaced in the UK. Around the same time, a reconsideration of the potential value of PHC in low-income countries was prompted by a realization of the limited value of using technology and specialist doctors to solve basic health problems. Cueto traces the term PHC to medical missionaries working in developing countries who emphasized the training of village workers to provide low cost, simple and effective health measures to communities.
