Punjab is the largest province of Pakistan with a population of over 85 million. Provision of equal access to primary healthcare is a mammoth task in this developing country with well known resource constraints. Punjab has a network of 2748 primary healthcare (PHC) facilities spread over an area of 205,345 km2. The Punjab government has initiated a two-year Health Sector Reforms Programme (HSRP...

BACKGROUND Patients with tuberculosis (TB) face several challenges in accessing care, and an integrated service that includes HIV testing could be preferable for them and ensure timely HIV treatment initiation and optimal TB care. OBJECTIVES To investigate factors, including uptake of the offer of HIV testing, associated with availability and utilisation of healthcare by TB patients in a rura...

In 1978, China began extensive market-oriented health reforms, effectively abandoning its equitable and efficient approach to primary health care (PHC) the year it was celebrated in the Alma Ata declaration. Thirty years later, how is China renewing its PHC system? This article analyzes China’s potential to become a high performing system by examining its: 1) accessibility and equity of health ...

BACKGROUND An estimated 90% of HIV-infected people are likely to develop oral lesions in the course of HIV infection. Oro-pharyngeal candidiasis (OPC), an early marker for HIV-infection, can be diagnosed during an oral examination (OE). Primary healthcare (PHC) providers in Kenya are neither trained nor sufficiently equipped to perform this simple, cheap and non-invasive examination. The PHC sy...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the safety and cost-effectiveness of point-of-care troponin T testing (POCT-TnT) for the management of patients with chest pain in primary care. DESIGN Prospective observational study with follow-up. SETTING Three primary health care (PHC) centres using POCT-TnT and four PHC centres not using POCT-TnT in south-east Sweden. PATIENTS All patients ≥ 35 years of age, con...

Background: The global drive to scale up mental health services and eliminate the treatment gap requires incorporating into primary care (PHC). Primary provides comprehensive, continuous, coordinated if need be referrals higher levels of care. However, for these meet basic objective PHC, it is necessary determine healthcare workers’ preparedness caring mentally ill. Therefore, this study aimed ...

BACKGROUND Revitalising primary health care (PHC) and the need to reach MDG targets requires developing countries to adapt current evidence about effective health systems to their local context. Timor-Leste in one of the world's newest developing nations, with high maternal and child mortality rates, malaria, TB and malnutrition. Mountainous terrain and lack of transport pose serious challenges...

Introduction. Healthcare reforms launched in the early 2000s in Québec, Canada, involved the implementation of new forms of primary healthcare (PHC) organizations: Family Medicine Groups (FMGs) and Network Clinics (NCs). The objective of this paper is to assess how the organizational changes associated with these reforms have impact on patients' experience of care, use of services, and unmet ne...