History
As is the case in the rest of the African continent, the Senegalese have long used, and continue to use, traditional medicines and rely on traditional healers for medical ailments. However, in 1905, France laid the foundation for health policy in the area, though primarily to serve the French and not the native Senegalese. Later in 1905, Medical Assistance for the Indigenous was created. It was responsible for providing free medical care and health advice to indigenous peoples, promoting immunization, and promoting maternal and child health. Then, after the Second World War, the international public opinion became more critical of colonial policy, and priorities became refocused on child health. Comprehensive programs were put in place to fight against major diseases. Since its independence from France, and from the Gambia and Mali, Senegal has become more involved in major international programs for development and health. Today, access to health care remains very uneven across regions and between different income levels.
Read more about this topic: Health In Senegal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)