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Reference ID U27ZKA

Headline Morocco: "Morocco's infantry of health" by Jean Mohr, 1964

Description While modern treatment was available in the 3 or 4 major hospital centres of Morocco in 1957 there was almost no national staff to run the general health service. Contact between WHO and the health problems of Morocco started some four years before independence when it was realized that independence in the medical field meant a greatly intensified training programme.

Also, it was not sufficient to calculate the output of trainees needed to run the medical services of the day; output had to be geared to new targets set by the Government’s five-year plan for social and economic development (one health centre for every 45,000 inhabitants and one dispensary for every 15,000 inhabitants).

To provide the personnel necessary for this service not only was a 100$ increase in output of higher trained staff necessary it also became essential to create a new grade of trained basic personnel. Thus the “aides sanitaires” came into being.

With WHO and UNICEF help, under the prosaic symbol “Morocco” twenty-six schools for “aides sanitaires” were created.1964 will see 1,000 of these aides qualify, bringing to 4335 the cumulative number of these key workers who have been trained since 1957. On qualification “aides sanitaires” are assigned to rural health centres. Each rural health centre had a full-time doctor helped by two nurses and five aides sanitaires, of whom three are itinerant, doing nothing but home visiting.

In these photos WHO photographer, Jean Mohr, shows something of the 2-year training given to aides sanitaires through 5 trainees between the ages of 24 and 29, 2 of them being young women.

Mohamed MERROUNA, 29, first year student, is one of 10 children of a farmer. He has worked since 1959 as a assistant nurse at the Municipal Office of Hygiene, Rabat. Married, father of 2 children, he lives in the Cité Youssoufia (otherwise known as a bidonville or shanty town) since 1959. After his two-year course he hopes to specialize in pediatrics. He thinks nursing is a profession with a future in Morocco. His family is very proud of him and apt to consult him as if he were a doctor.

Mohamed visits a family in Douar Maadeid, a shanty town near Rabat. The mother is a TB patient and has just has a new baby. A nurse is already on the spot to help with the new baby. Mohamed tells the mother she should visit the health centre.

Asset date 01/01/1964

Country, area, WHO office Morocco

WHO Region EMRO

Consent No

File size 1.74 MB

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