ABSTRACT

Colonial administrations introduced various social infrastructures in Africa. This paper analyses and compares the development of colonial governments' health care provision and policies in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire from circa 1900 to 1955. Using qualitative and quantitative information from colonial reports, a new dataset captures the development of four factors relevant to these aims: health care expenditures, health care facilities, medical staff, and patients. Deflated health care expenditures per capita were found to be higher in Ghana than in Côte d’Ivoire in almost all years. The number of health care facilities per capita was larger in Côte d’Ivoire than in Ghana, and facilities were more geographically dispersed. Ghana had a lower number of medical staff per capita than Côte d’Ivoire as of the 1920s. Medical staff from Côte d’Ivoire formed the majority of the staff base as early as the mid-1910s. Finally, the analysis shows that the number of patients treated in health care facilities in Ghana was low until the 1920s, and took off as more facilities became available during the 1940s. These findings provide evidence that even two countries that are relatively similar (apart from their colonial history) can have different colonial health care trajectories.

摘要

殖民当局在非洲引进了各种社会基础设施。本文分析和比较了 1900 年至 1955 年左右加纳和科特迪瓦殖民政府医疗保健提供和政策的发展。利用殖民报告中的定性和定量信息，一个新的数据集捕获了与这些因素相关的四个因素的发展情况。目标：医疗保健支出、医疗保健设施、医务人员和患者。几乎所有年份，加纳的人均紧缩医疗保健支出都高于科特迪瓦。科特迪瓦的人均医疗保健设施数量多于加纳，而且设施在地理上也更加分散。截至 20 年代，加纳的人均医务人员数量低于科特迪瓦。早在 1910 年代中期，来自科特迪瓦的医务人员就构成了员工队伍的大部分。最后，分析显示，直到 1920 年代，加纳医疗机构接受治疗的患者数量一直很低，随着 1940 年代更多设施的出现，该数量开始增加。这些发现提供的证据表明，即使两个相对相似的国家（除了殖民历史之外）也可能有不同的殖民医疗保健轨迹。