Question

7.The health worker has essentially curative, preventive or surveillance roles.(2 نقطة)

True

False

Answer 1

A health care worker is a person who directly or indirectly provides health care services to sick as well as the general population. The spectrum of health care workers ranges from doctors and nurses to ward attenders, lab and radiology technicians to even class IV workers.

The answer to the above mentioned question is 'Yes/True'.

The main role of a health care worker is to render preventive,promotive and curative services from actual or potential illeness. In the current scenario of pandemic, surveillance has become an inevitable part in the health care delivery system worldwide. Let's see what each of these services focus on:

1. Preventive: preventive role can otherwise be mentioned as prophylaxis. It involves measures taken to prevent the occurance and spread of a potential disease condition. For example,in the current situation the public is educated by mass health education programs, regarding the safety measures to prevent getting infected with COVID 19 virus, through various medias and health campaigns, home visits etc.It may also include the different diagnostic tests run to identify presence of infected individuals in a community and isolating them to prevent further spread.
2. Promotive: promotive services includes the measures taken to protect the public or an individal from contracting a disease by modifying the environment as well as unhealthy lifestyle . For example, creating awarness among people to avoid stagnation of water,taking measures to close unused and stagnated water sources, advicing about mosquito control measures that could be incorporated in the households,helps to prevent the occurance and spread of dengue fever.
3. Curative: its the actual bedside or personal health care provided once a client is diagnosed with a disease condition. It includes all the therapeutic measures including medical,surgical and nursing care provided for their faster recovery and aiding the individual to return back to their normal activities of daily living.
4. Surveillance: The word surveillance means to 'Watch Over' and in public health it means close observation of a population for the occurance of a particular health condition. It helps to identify the incidence as well the distribution of a particular diease among the selected population by systematic data collection, consolidation, and evaluation of morbidity and mortality reports and other relevant data, inorder to formulate health policies to promote health and prevent illness. So we can assume surveillance as the stepping stone towards acheivement of other 3 roles of the health care workers which are prevention,promotion and curing.