In the matter of healthcare the churches saw the provision of affordable healthcare as vital to a population that could not afford private medical treatment. Even in current-day Zambia, the Catholic Church alone is running 15 hospitals, 28 health centres, 54 home based care institutions. The provision of healthcare had a twofold motivation. Firstly, there was the concern driven by Biblical principles of care for the incapacitated. Examples include the parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37, then Jesus' encouragement in Matthew 25:36 "I was sick and you looked after me, " and the Old Testament reprimand to the leaders of Israel, "you have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured," Ezk 34:4, Secondly, it was driven by a perception that the only alternative medical care available to the local population involved traditional healers and their use of, in colonial eyes, unscientific and crude methods as well as possible appeals to animistic or ancestral powers. These latter elements were of particular concern in ecclesiastical circles as, the Church has generally tried to change or discourage cultural practices that are contrary to Christian teaching. Christian missions were at the forefront of social change in Zambia. On the question of traditional penal codes, that were either considered too lenient or too harsh depending on the change the missions wished to see imposed, as opposed to a legal code more in line with that in Britain the Church was instrumental in pushing through reform. The involvement of missionaries was "more than providing correctives – spiritual or otherwise… their real ambition was power". Generally though healthcare had impact on indigenous society it was seen as a reasonably neutral activity by the colonial authorities.