Hesperian Health Guides
The Medical System
and nurses
nurses
and specialists
Important Health Services
The medical system offers many kinds of services. Some services, like surgery, x-rays, or ultrasounds, are usually only available in hospitals. But the following services should be offered at low cost at the community level:
- health information so that everyone can make better decisions about their health, treat health problems correctly, and prevent illness.
- immunizations or vaccinations that can prevent many diseases, including tetanus, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, tuberculosis, rubella, hepatitis, HPV, and COVID.
- care during pregnancy (prenatal care) to find and treat problems before they become serious.
- family planning services to help people with safe, effective methods to prevent pregnancy, allowing them to decide when or if they have children.
- health exams to help find and treat problems such as anemia, malaria, high blood pressure, diabetes, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
Tests can give more information about possible causes of health problems. Some tests, like Pap tests, for example, require some training but no expensive equipment. These tests should be offered at the community level. Other tests require specialized laboratories and equipment that are more likely to be found in a larger health center or hospital.
Find out about the clinic or hospital
Before you get care, find out about the health service by talking with people you trust who have been there. Ask if there are social workers who can help patients get or pay for services. Also look for online information or their website.
No matter where you go for health care, anyone helping you should do their best to provide you with:
- Access. Everyone who needs medical care should be able to have it. It should not matter where you live, how much money you have, what your religion is, the language you speak, how you express your gender or sexuality, the color of your skin, your political beliefs, or what health problem you have.
- Information. You should be told about your problem and about what the different possible treatments mean for you. The health worker should invite you to ask questions and make sure you understand what you need to do to get better and how to prevent the problem from happening again.
- Choice. Choice. You should be able to choose whether or not you are treated, and how. Also, you should have choices about where to go for treatment.
- Safety. Treatments should be safe and offered because a good result is more likely than any harm. Any risk should be explained, as well as how to take any medicines or any other actions needed to safely recover.
- Respect. You should always be treated with respect and courtesy.
- Privacy. Things that you say to a doctor, nurse, or other health care worker should not be overheard by others or repeated to anyone else. Exams should be given in a way that other people cannot see your body. If there are other people who need to be in the room, you should be told who they are and why they are there. You should have the right to tell them to leave if you do not want them there.
- Comfort. Being touched by a health worker or their medical instruments may be uncomfortable. They should take steps to make you as comfortable as possible during an exam. You should also have a good place to wait and not have to wait too long.
- Follow-up care. If you need more care, you should be able to see the same person, or have a written record of the care you received to take to a new doctor, nurse, or health worker.