Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0008/00087.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 26KB | 427 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00087}
$Pretitle{244}
$Title{Algeria
Chapter 2E.   Health and Welfare}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{LaVerle Berry}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{algerian
government
french
housing
health
schools
education
system
program
social}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     Algeria
Book:        Algeria, A Country Study
Author:      LaVerle Berry
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 2E.   Health and Welfare

Social Welfare

     The social system that had prevailed before the coming of the French had
very little need for public welfare. Extended families, clans, and tribes
provided care for the elderly and needy members as a matter of course, and
granaries maintained by villages or tribal units kept stores of grain
available for use in years of poor harvest. During the French colonial period
the old way of life was substantially altered, bat in the 1980s enough of the
old remained for the traditional sense of personal responsibility to rank high
among accepted social values.

     The whole fabric of the socialist system, however, was based largely on
the concept of public responsibility for welfare, and during the first years
after independence the government of Algeria set about extending the public
welfare program. A system of family allowances for employed persons had been
instituted by the French in 1943, and in 1949 a limited social security
program had been initiated for urban and some agricultural workers. These
systems remained in effect after independence, and in 1971 a new social
security ordinance extended to all agricultural personnel benefits enjoyed by
industrial and service sector workers. This program has provided sickness and
disability insurance, old-age pensions, and family allowances and has been
financed by contributions from employees, employers, and the government.

Health

     In the mid-1980s, after some 15 years of relative neglect, the Algerian
government had placed a high priority on its medical care program. In 1978 the
administrative budget allocated some DA1 billion (for value of the Algerian
dinar-see Glossary) for health care; for the period 1985-89, capital outlays
alone were to amount to DA8 billion, and the government was committed to a
health care system adequate to the country's needs.

     In 1974 a new system of virtually free national health care was
introduced. Hospitalization, medicines, and outpatient care were free to all,
the funding of health care being underwritten equally by the state and social
security. In 1984 the government formally adopted a plan to transform the
health sector from a curative system to a preventive one more suitable to the
needs of a young population. Rather than investing in expensive hospitals,
health centers and clinics were to be emphasized together with vaccination
programs, and it was hoped that the infant mortality rate of 109 deaths per
1,000 live births could be cut in half over the next five years. In general,
the health sector was to be more closely integrated into national planning.

     Tuberculosis, trachoma, venereal infections, and typhoid were the most
serious diseases; gastrointestinal complaints, pneumonia, diphtheria, scarlet
fever, and mumps were relatively common. Tuberculosis was considered the most
serious health hazard, and trachoma ranked next; only a small minority of the
population were entirely free from this fly-borne eye infection, which was
directly or indirectly responsible for most of the numerous cases of
blindness. Malaria and poliomyelitis, both formerly endemic, had been brought
under control.

     The incidence of disease was related to nutritional deficiencies, crowded
living conditions, a general shortage of water, and insufficient knowledge of
personal sanitation and modern health practices. In the 1980s the government
was concentrating on disease prevention measures, health education, and
expansion of health programs into rural areas where the traditional view was
one in which physical well-being was looked on as a gift from God. Disease was
thought of as caused by evil spirits, and reliance was still placed on various
magical and herbal cures.

     In the mid-1980s Algeria had about 9,000 physicians, or one for every
2,000 inhabitants, and more than 200 hospitals with 50,000 beds. Several
hundred health centers and clinics were also scattered across the country.
Medical schools were turning out so many physicians-800 to 1,000 annually
since 1976-that enrollments had had to be curtailed.

     Despite this threat of oversupply, medical personnel and facilities were
concentrated in the north, particularly in the large cities, while more remote
rural areas and the Saharan region were almost devoid of modern medical care.
To remedy this situation, a large number of foreign medical support personnel,
as well as physicians, were employed. In 1984 these numbered about 3,000; they
came from countries such as France, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam as well as
from Eastern Europe. In view of the large number of Algerian trainees,
however, it seemed likely that new medical graduates of Algerian universities
would be sent to staff the rural dispensaries that the government was
building.

     A 1976 ordinance prescribed that physicians, dentists, and pharmacists
completing their studies abroad, as well as in Algeria, must give at least
five years of public health service. On completing this required stint of
service, however, they might apply for licenses to open private practice. Such
private practitioners reportedly numbered more than 2,100 in 1984. The
prospect of higher income and better living conditions accounted for at least
some of the burgeoning medical enrollments.

     In the mid-1980s the University of Algiers and the Algiers University of
Science and Technology had schools of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy; the
University of Constantine had schools of medicine and pharmacy; and the
University of Oran maintained a medical school. Medical training was also
available at the university center at Setif. In addition, the government
maintained public health schools for paramedical personnel in Algiers,
Constantine, and Oran that recruited from secondary schools for their
programs.

     Conservative Islamic social attitudes militated against the entrance of
women into medical practice, but the government had made continuing efforts to
train them as nurses and technicians, and several thousand were studying to
become physicians. Two-year nursing courses at the secondary level were
offered in Algiers and at several regional centers. Training for midwives was
available in Oran and Constantine.

Housing

     Unchecked population growth and an incessant flow of urban migration have
combined to bring about a severe housing shortage. The Algerian housing
problem has been less pressing than in many other developing countries,
however, owing to the postindependence flight of most of the Europeans. Nearly
all of the Europeans had been city dwellers, living in the so-called new towns
surrounding the medinas (traditional cities) that housed the Algerian
population. In 1961 and 1962 many simply abandoned their properties to
squatters from the countryside who promptly occupied them, sometimes as many
as six Algerian families living in a residence that had formerly housed a
single European family. Property abandonment was so common that biens vacants
(empty properties) suddenly became a term in common use.

     Several years were required for the government to inventory the vacant
properties. In 1965, however, a government financial reform endeavored to
regularize ownership and collection of rents from some 500,000 nationalized or
sequestered apartments and houses in the major cities.

     Rural migrants settled into the bidonvilles, so-called because flattened
bidons (tin cans) were used extensively in their ramshackle construction.
After independence the bidonville population of Algiers alone soon exceeded
100,000. Bidonvilles appeared in other