Papers, Presentations, and Slide Shows

by David Werner

Politics of Health

NEW! BEFORE AND BEYOND OBJECTIVES AND GOALS: THE VISION
Summary: It is not the stated goals and objectives of a community program that make it vital or viable--but rather the vision, unwritten and evolving, shared by the members of the program and community as they change and evolve together. April, 1988.

NEW! HEALTH FOR NO ONE BY THE YEAR 2000
The high cost of placing `national security' before global justice. A talk by David Werner to the National Council for International Health (NCIH), 1989. As relevant today as it was in 1989. "To formulate an effective strategy for improving health and survival, we must first reexamine the causes that lead to the present high levels of sickness and death -- especially among vulnerable groups. We must follow the chain of causes all the way to its source, even if its final link frames a mirror in which we begin to rediscover ourselves -- our value judgments, our lifestyle, our government -- through the eyes of the world's dispossessed and hungry."

NEW! THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE or THE McDONALDIZATION OF ALMA ATA
A talk by David Werner. Seminar organized by Medicine for the People, Medical Aid for the Third World, and the International People's Health Council. Dworp, Belgium, December 4, 1993.
To those of us committed to the dream of Health for All, in today's troubled world one thing becomes increasingly clear: The health of people -- as individuals, as communities, and as an endangered species on this fragile planet -- is determined less by health services than by the relative fairness of social structures. In last analysis, the overall health of the world's people depends on the epic struggle between love and greed. To gain a clearer understanding of the fate of Primary Health Care over the last 15 years, we therefore need to place it in that context.

NEW! THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE
An updated and somewhat condensed version of a talk given two years earlier in Dworp, Belgium (see above). Part of a presentation for the International People's Health Council at the NGO Forum United Nations "Global Summit," March 7, 1995.

SOUTH AFRICA’S UPHILL BATTLE FOR EQUITY AND HEALTH
A report by David Werner on workshops facilitated with the Western Cape Association for Persons with Disability. February—March 2007

A GRASSROOTS STRUGGLE FOR HEALTH AND RIGHTS IN RURAL MEXICO Note: This “case study” was originally prepared in 1994 by David Werner for inclusion in a book to be titled “Society and Health Case Book,” edited by Benjamin C. Amick III and Rima Rudd. Unfortunately the book was never competed. We therefore make it accessible on this website.

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP: THE KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY
Note: This document was written as a chapter for a book edited by Jon Rohde, to be titled
“Sustaining Health for All,” which was to be the third volume of series of studies on Primary
Health Care. Unfortunately this volume was never completed or published (no doubt in part
because some of the potential authors shared the misgivings expressed in this article).

One of David Werner's earliest and most influential papers: THE VILLAGE HEALTH WORKER -- LACKEY OR LIBERATOR? First published in May, 1977.

UPDATE ON THE POLITICS OF HEALTH IN MEXICO'S SIERRA MADRE, brief situational analysis by David Werner for a booklet by the International People's Health Council, November, 2002

COMMUNICATIONS AS IF PROPLE MATTERED: Adapting health promotion and social action to the global imbalances of the 21st Century, (in PDF format). Background Paper #5, for the People's Health Assembly, December, 2002.

PRIMARY HEALTHY CARE AND THE TEMPTATION OF EXCELLENCE. From Newsletter from the Sierra Madre # 10, April, 1975. This includes several reflections and short stories emphasizing the human side of Primary Health Care, setting the philosophical and existential framework for the following story: "What we learned from Maria."

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM MARIA ..This article from "Newsletter from the Sierra Madre" # 10, April, 1975, has becoome one of the classics of health care literature. The story, which tells the events leading up to the tragic death a distressed village woman in Mexico, shows the importance of cultural sensitivity, and of taking the concerns of the ailing person seriously. The tragedy of Maria helped a lot of us rethink our approach to health care and to become not only better health workers but more humble and caring human beings.

GLOBAL ILLS AND POPULAR STRUGGLES IN ECUADOR: This article gives an account of a groundbreaking Regional Forum in Cuenca, in preparation for the PeopleÂ’s Health Assembly, scheduled for December, 2000 in Bangladesh.

BREAKING THE GRIP OF GLOBALIZATION ON POVERTY-RELATED ILL-HEALTH: Keynote address by David Werner to the NGO Forum for Health's Conference on "Breaking the grip of Poverty on Health" Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, May 15, 2000

Health and Equity: Need for a People's Perspective in the Quest for World Health. Presented at the WHO conference on "PHC21--Everybody's Business, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 27-29 Nov, 1998.

Who Killed Primary Healthcare?--David Werner asks "How the ideal of ‘health for all’ was turned into the reality of worsening health for the world’s poor." The New Internationalist, 1995.

La Guerra Antidrogas. By David Werner. (spanish) Publicado en Nexus, # 156, dic. 1990. Un reportaje sobre como los gobierrnos de Los Estados Unidos y Mexico han abusados las familias campesinos en una guerra contra drogas que relamente los gobiernos no quierran ganar.

David Werner & Jason Weston: Hidden Costs of Free Trade: Mexico Bites the Bullet. Published by the Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia. Adapted from an article in Newsletter from the Sierra Madre.

Giving control back to the people. Article from Link (Vol. 16, No 3, June 1998), bulletin of the Asian Community Health Action Network. "Costly medicines can actually increase ill health, while people's sense of control over their health care may still be the crucial factor in maintaining their well being."

Village-run health programs in the Sierra Madre region of Mexico--an interview with David Werner, by Kathryn True. In Context, # 39 1997, one article in a series titled "Good Medicine."

Disability and Rehabilitation

People with disabilities in the struggle for social change. Keynote address in Bangalore, India, 1993

Disabled People in International Development. Summary of a paper on "Visit to Angola: Where Civilians are Disabled as a Strategy of 'Low Intensity Conflict'." 1989

Management of Long-Term Disability. Keynote address, March, 1998, Singapore

Short quotes by David Werner on Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). 1989.

Designing wheelchairs in the Wild Wild West. Short article on PROJIMO's wheelchair building program in Mexico, by David McMullin

Juan's (Mario') story in the New Internationalist. July, 1992. The story of a young man in Mexicio who was a street boy and drug dealer. After he was shot through the spine and went through rehabilitation at PROJIMO he found new meaning in life providing therapy and making special seating for disabled kids.

Seats that Enable-- Special Seating Seminar-Workshop in Culiacan, Mexico. Facilitated by special seating specialist Jean Ann Zollars. Coordinated by PROJIMO and Mas Válidos. March 1992.

Other writings

Newsletters from the Sierra Madre. Newsletters back to #43 are now on this web site. Summaries of earlier newsletter (back to #29) are also included, and hard copies are availavle.

Home Remedies. Adapted from Where There is No Doctor by David Werner.

Online Color Slide Presentations

NEW! SLIDE SHOW of Custom-made Wheelchairs for Children - at PROJIMO Skills Training and Work Program, now in Duranguito, Sinaloa, Mexico Updated November, 2002

SLIDE SHOW on PROJIMO, presented by David Werner in Tokyo, Japan. 80 color slides with brief comments, on the "Program of Rehabilitation Run by Disabled Youth in Western Mexico."