Robert A. Askins and healthcare reform in interwar colonial Zimbabwe : the influence of British and trans-territorial colonial models

Abstract

Significant reforms of national healthcare systems took place across African colonies during the interwar period. These reforms were driven by changing notions of colonial governance, public health, and medical science and its various methods and imperatives of care. Although necessitated by local colonial concerns, connections between these schemes and other metropolitan and trans-imperial models are being uncovered, with an increasing number of historians underscoring complex international histories of interweaving models. This article plugs into this burgeoning research niche by unveiling a new case study, colonial Zimbabwe’s medical units scheme, a rural district healthcare initiative that was formulated in 1930 by Robert A. Askins, the colonial medical director and former medical officer of health in Bristol. This case study is used to demonstrate the ways in which local colonial healthcare policies evolved in contexts of entanglements and transfer of ideas within and across colonies and empires. That said, individual colonial agents and their departments were responsible for pulling together all the disparate ideas and models into cohesive national colonial policies that simultaneously modernised and subjugated African society.

Beduidende hervormings in die nasionale gesondheidsisteme het gedurende die tussenoorlogse periode regoor kolonies in Afrika plaasgevind. Hierdie hervormings is gedryf deur vinnig-veranderende opvattings oor koloniale regering, openbare gesondheid en die mediese wetenskap, asook die onderskeie metodes en noodsaaklikhede van versorging. Alhoewel geïnspireer deur plaaslike koloniale sake, word konneksies tussen hierdie skemas en ander metropolitaanse en trans-imperiale modelle toenemend ontbloot; met meer en meer historici wat die komplekse internasionale geskiedenisse van interverweefde modelle beklemtoon. Hierdie artikel dra by tot hierdie ontwikkelende navorsingsveld deur die onthulling van ’n nuwe gevallestudie, koloniale Zimbabwe se mediese eenheidskemas, ’n landelike distriksgesondheidskema wat in 1930 geformuleer is deur Robert A. Askins, die koloniale gesondheidsdirekteur en voormalige gesondheidsbeampte van Bristol. Hierdie gevallestudie word gebruik om die maniere waarop plaaslike gesondheidsbeleide ontwikkel het in kontekste van verstrengeling en die oordrag van idees binne en oor kolonies en ryke. Nietemin, individuele koloniale agente en hul departemente was verantwoordelik vir die sametrekking van al die verskillende idees en modelle in samehangende nasionale koloniale beleide wat die Afrika samelewing beide gemoderniseer en onderwerp het.