Access to rehabilitation in primary health care

This document was produced as part of the Technical Series on Primary Health Care on the occasion of the Global Conference on Primary Health Care under the overall direction of the conference coordination team.

Introduction 

At the heart of the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata1 was the recognition that primary health care forms an integral part of every country’s health system. It brings health care to people where they live and work and it constitutes the opening element of a continuing health care process. The Declaration made it clear that to address the main health needs of people in the community, primary health care must include promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative services in accordance with those needs. In this paper, rehabilitation is recognized as a core component of the health care continuum, as necessary in primary health care, at the gateway to service delivery as they are in secondary or tertiary care (see Box 1 for an outline of what rehabilitation comprises).