WorldView Magazine - Fall 2009 - (Page 22)
Health WHEN WATER AND SANITATION ARE A PRIORITY A Returned Volunteer reflects on Korea’s development trajectory by Steve Werner hirty-two years ago, from 1976 to 1978, my wife Patti and I served as Peace Corps Tuberculosis Control Volunteers in South Korea. Our assignment was to work alongside Korean health workers in rural health centers to ensure that laboratory procedures, patient records, patient education, and health and hygiene promotion were being conducted properly. We found that while Korean health workers were technically very proficient, there wasn’t an importance placed on patient education or health and hygiene education. For example, when Korean tuberculosis patients started feeling better they stopped taking the medicine that was given to them free by the health center. Consequently, every tuberculosis patient that we detected was resistant to the first line of drugs. The Korean government couldn’t afford to give the more powerful drugs to these drug resistant patients and the patients rarely could afford to buy the medicine themselves. As a result, most of them ended up dying from their tuberculosis. We also discovered that there was no health and hygiene education taking place and many Koreans were dying and suffering from waterrelated illnesses. Safe drinking water mainly came from deep wells with hand pumps. There was little-tono piped water, even in the larger cities. In remote rural areas, people gathered water from polluted streams and ponds. The pollution was mainly from animal and human waste and garbage. There was virtually no disinfecting of the water occurring in rural areas and only some boiling of the water in the cities. In terms of sanitation, many latrines were poorly 22 Fall 2009 T constructed and maintained, and unsanitized human waste was being used as manure in the fields. In its favor, Korea had an excellent school system and a network of community leaders in place. Organizing health and hygiene education classes in the schools and in the rural communities would be relatively easy, if Korean health authorities understood the importance. We set to work. We spent most of our time educating our co-workers and the rural health promoters, usually young women who had high school educations but limited opportunities to go to college, about the importance of health and hygiene education. We developed a health education program that we co-presented with the rural health promoters. We explained to school principals, teachers, village leaders and rural development leaders why changing health and hygiene practices were important to the immediate health of people at risk and the longterm benefit to their communities. Now fast forward thirty-two years to July 2009 when the Korean government and Friends of Korea sponsored a reunion trip for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and their families to say thank you and to show RPCVs how much the country had developed. In addition to briefings and meetings with the Korea Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (the Korean version of Peace Corps), Patti and I had the opportunity to visit our Peace Corps site and health centers. We expected a big change in Korea, but the development was truly remarkable. We found the health care system to be very modern, and in my opinion, in some ways more progressive than in the US. Tuberculosis and other serious diseases are rare. Water-related illnesses are virtually unknown. Even rural areas have safe drinking water, water systems, toilets and sanitation treatment. Health centers, even in remote areas, are conducting health education with an emphasis on positive health behavior. Vaccinations are given to all children and health care is available to everyone without regard to the cost: poor people pay nothing and wealthier people pay on a sliding scale. There are even nutrition classes, smoking cessation classes, exercise classes and physical therapy for everyone at virtually no expense. Garbage is very rare to find along the sides of the roads and the muddy footpaths that we used to reach remote villages are now all paved with concrete. Oxen-drawn carts and tills are mechanized. The prediction that as Korea developed economically, health concerns would be reduced, came true. Some of this is because the health care system has expanded further into remote rural areas. The improved infrastructure has made it easier for patients to get to treatment and easier to transport vaccines to all parts of South Korea. Additionally, as even poor people’s lives improved, so did their nutrition and life styles. Having worked for so many years in international development, especially in the area of drinking water, sanitation and health, and hygiene education, it was gratifying to hear one of Korea’s foremost public health officials give credit for Korea’s
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of WorldView Magazine - Fall 2009
WorldView Magazine - Fall 2009
Contents
President's Letter
Your Turn
Are You Connected Yet? Join Africa Rural Connect
Group News Highlights
Why Investment in Health Is Critical Now
New Hope and Lessons from Rwanda
Turning a Blind Eye
A Question of Capacity
CN U HLP ME? I HAVE A ??
When Water and Sanitation Are a Priority
Could “Peace Care” Lessen the Global Burden of Disease?
One, Two, Three
Translating International Health to Health Care at Home
Turning Tragedy to Opportunity
Costa Rica: Finding My Religion
St. Lucia: Learning about Hunger
Seven Dusty Notebooks
Peace Corps Service 2.0
The Peace Corps Community Making a Difference
Community News
Advertiser Index
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