Organization

The bill establishing the Health Corps was passed into law on August 3, 1964. Qualifying candidates were inducted immediately, the first group undergoing an intensive four-month training course by the start of September 1964. By January 1st, 1965, the new Corpsmen were in field positions.

The rapidity with which the organization progressed from induction to training to dynamic action in the field was largely the result of careful planning.


THE LAW (for full text of the Law see appendix)

The law setting up the Health Corps specifies that the Corps consist of physicians, dentists, pharmacists, sanitary engineers, laboratory technicians, health educators, university graduates in the social sciences and related fields, along with a supporting group of high school graduates surplus to Army needs.

The Health Corpsmen were divided into two groups. One was a medical group and was comprised of university graduates. Upon completion of training, they were awarded officer rank, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant in the Iranian Army with the epaulets and insignia of the Health Corps. The other was a medical aid group, consisting of secondary-school graduates, and upon completion of training, the members of the latter group were awarded the Health Corps insignia and the rank of a non-commissioned officer.


TRAINING

The training period, which was originally four months, has now been extended to six months. In the training period both groups receive basic military training. During the same period, each member of the Medical Corps is provided with 345 hours of public health courses including rural health education and social sciences. The Medical Aid group also takes 345 hours of such courses. In addition to the general program, selected Corpsmen with suitable backgrounds attend specialized courses such as laboratory practice, environmental health or health education, as preparation for specialist jobs in the field.

Health Corpsmen with backgrounds in the social sciences become Health Educators. Their job is to bring about changes in the community by stimulating villagers to self-help programs. Health Corpsmen with backgrounds in engineering are trained in rural sanitary engineering to head environmental health units. Their job, when called upon, is the physical reconstruction of the village, improving water supply systems, sewerage and waste disposal facilities, slaughterhouses, or building better mortuaries. Similarly, dentists receive special training in rural dental care, laboratory technicians and pharmacists in the operation of field laboratories.


GOALS

The law specifies that the Health Corps is to promote rural public health, raise the level of health knowledge in the villages, and increase rural income by improving the effectiveness of the nation's manpower resources through the development of a healthier population. These goals are to be achieved by:

1. Treating patients in need of medical care;

2. Preventing diseases;

3. Developing sanitary environments;

4. Providing maternal and child health care;

5. Teaching practical means for improvements in nutrition; and,

6. Guiding the people to a healthier mode of living.

HEADQUARTERS

To organize for an action program, a small headquarters unit was set up in Tehran, the capital. A small permanent staff performs administrative functions and coordinates the operation. Similarly, in each regional capital, a regional administrative and coordinating committee was set up. In each case, efforts are coordinated with regional development programs and close liaison is maintained with other agencies performing various rural services.

In cities and towns around the country, the Health Corps established a series of 30 bases. Around these bases, deep in the rural areas, some 360 main centers were set up with medical facilities and living quarters. It is from these main centers that the mobile units operate on scheduled visits to neighboring villages, placing some 13,000 villages with a total population of some 6 million under the care of the Health Corps.


MEDICAL TEAMS

The mobile team is the most dynamic section of the Health Corps. It is led by a physician and supported by medical aids. They are on the move from village to village along a prescribed and carefully scheduled route. Strategically placed along the route are small sub-centers with extra supplies of medicines and medical equipment. At any time of the day or night the exact whereabouts of the mobile units are known.

In practice, a mobile unit arrives at a village at the scheduled time. The sick have already gathered in the village square awaiting the doctor. The medical aids draw out the records for the village. Treatment begins immediately. This mobile unit is backstopped in various ways. 

In Tehran, at the Health Corps Organizational Headquarters, the program planning and training section plans and supervises the operational activities of the Health Corps, training Health Corpsmen in public health, setting down guidelines, publishing surveys, statistics, specific information of field experience, and setting up projects. The administrative and fiscal section deals with personnel and procurement. It is up to the headquarters to supply the necessary equipment to the Health Corps in each region. On the regional level, there is a headquarters organization to guide and supervise the entire program.


HEALTH CORPS BASES

To assure coordination and to attend to matters of supply and administration, there is one base for each 8 to 12 mobile team. A base includes:

a. An administrative affairs section by two secondary school graduates;

b. A laboratory section with a laboratory technician and a secondary school graduate assigned as his assistant;

c. A dentistry section consisting of the dentist, an assistant and the necessary equipment;

d. A sanitary engineering section consisting of an engineer, along with a plumber, mason and sanitary aid;

e. A health education section, consisting of a social science graduate; and,

f. A transportation section with one secondary school graduate in charge consists of one or two van-cars and an ambulance, and two or three drivers.

The actual day-to-day backstop of the mobile team is its base. The physician in charge of the mobile team can call out the sanitary engineers on an urgent job, call for the services of the health educator to attempt to overcome a specific problem, call for the laboratory aid to collect blood samples if a disease is suspected, or send the patients themselves to the laboratory at the base. If there is a casualty they cannot attend to, the team can call on the base to send out the ambulance. Dental patients can be sent to the base, or if necessary, the dentist can be asked to set up a temporary office in the village if there are enough serious cases of unattended bad teeth. A large part of the success enjoyed by the mobile team is due in large part to the fact that it can call upon such aid.

Each base has refrigeration units to preserve vaccines and other emergency equipment to deal with critical situations. The Health Corps Organization Headquarters dispatches medicines every four months, but each base has a fund to facilitate the purchase of additional or special medical supplies.

The Health Corps has been organized, therefore, as mobile units circulating around a base. The bases have been deployed around provincial cities. And the program is coordinated with other rural activities in the region, while the whole decentralized organization is administered by a small headquarters at the capital.