The Nazareth Healing Complex: A Study In Integrated Approach To Health Care

ABSTRACT

The main thrust of this study is to investigate a novel phenomenon in health care delivery at Vane, in the Volta Region of Ghana called the Nazareth Healing Complex (NHC). Designed to provide comprehensive health care at one location, the NHC combines faith, herbal and modern medical systems. The central aim of the NHC multispeciality group practice is to allow an interchange of ideas and consultation among all the health practitioners within the same facility. The assumed advantage is the greater continuity of care where referrals between different specialists are effected within the same facility, for the total health care of patients. This study seeks to discover the role of the NHC in meeting the psychological, social and physical health needs of the people. It attempts to explain the nature of the interrelationship between the constituent parts and to show the role-relationship between the NHC and the larger community of Vane. The Theoretical framework for the analysis was the Social Systems perspective which includes features of both rational and a fundamentalist model in the study of social change.