Sustainable and healthy communities

The medical social work connection

Abstract

Over the years, medical social work in Nigeria seems to have been “hospital-fix”. Their engagements with the health of populations tend not to have moved far from hospital-centred practice. This paper seeks to discuss various approaches medical social workers can engage, in order to have an effective practice. They draw from social, economic and ecological approaches, which make up sustainable development. The paper also stressed the need for medical social workers to consider all three approaches in their practice since the overall goal is not just the client’s health, but ensuring that communities are healthy enough. Finally, discourse analysis applied in part, applying and interpreting quotes from published primary studies relevant to issues of this research.