Blog 10: Mobile Health

The article’s main focus is one company’s goal to try and help the African people in their need for basic health care.  Samsung, an global electronics leader based out of South Korea, it typically thought of providing high quality televisions and the latest in mobile phones or tablets, has recently introduced a mobile, solar powered medical clinic.  This clinic, currently based in South Africa, is focused on providing some basic, more preventative, health needs to the more rural areas of the country.  “The 7m long truck contains ear, dental, and eye clinics and a mini laboratory where blood analyses can be done.”  The types of tests that can be conducted are those that can identify some of the most serious health conditions that Africans face like malaria, HIV/AIDS, and more recently is increased blood pressure.  The seemingly only downfall to the mobile clinic is its inability to fulfill any medical prescriptions that are needed, forcing the individual to travel to a government, or private, medical facility to receive the medications.  Samsung’s solar powered medical clinic provides these services as well as keeping emissions down, and enabling a learning environment for those waiting to be seen by a certain medical service.  “The vehicle cost Samsung R2.25-million (US$250 000), with equipment and medicines paid for by the company, in consultation with the departments of Health and Social Development, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies and universities to help funding”.  This solar mobile clinic has the ability to evaluate health concerns to up to 300 people per day, which is the initial step in obtaining Samsung’s goal of reaching 5 million lives by 2015.  This, no doubt, will happen with its plans to expand its territory into East and West Africa.

It is going to take private corporations like Samsung working in conjunction with local, and national, governments to be able to provide some of the more basic needs that everybody deserves.  The article did continue to speak of other contributions that the Samsung Corporation takes part in, like mobile education centers capable of utilizing easy-to-use modern technology in providing education at all levels to those in the rural parts of Africa.  Also, Samsung supports an Electronics Engineering Academy in multiple countries on the African continent to educated and certify over 10,000 electronics engineers by 2015.  This is truly a corporation that not only sees the inequality gap that has been created between many of the African countries and the remainder of the world, but a corporation that is actually doing something about it, and not only in just one aspect.  The concept that both health and education are inseparably joined is why the two are attacked at the same time, “if a child cannot hear or see properly, they can't learn properly".  This is what should be the philosophy of every country throughout the world.  The future is in the next generation of people, not the one that is currently living.  I know that is redundant, but it is true.  If, on a global scale, both health and education are not seen as interrelated, particularly for those that are kids, then society will cease to exist, and so will the human population.

http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/574/92008.html

Matt Partridge

04/19/2013 at 4:25 pm

The article talks about how the Zimbabwean government has open up credit accounts for rural medical clinics in order to give free medical assistance to pregnant mothers during birth.  These monies come from a specific fund designated to help out the country’s poor health care system.  The are several provinces of the country that have no choice but to abides by these laws because they are “receiving funding under the Result Based Financing — funded by the World Bank are no longer charging pregnant women deliveries.”  The World Bank sets guidelines and imposes checks on those guidelines to ensure that their monies are being used appropriately.  If not, the World Bank will retract their funds and then those services or institutions, in this case  medical care for pregnancy, will no longer be funded and have to finds means elsewhere.  The article continues to talk more about that even though the government has declared that all rural areas have to provide free births to pregnant women, there are reports that some areas are still charging a registering fee for the birth at check in.  This ranges from 5-20 dollars, which may not be a lot to us, but that is a significant amount of money to the Zimbabweans.  The government has reported that all rural medical clinics have set up the necessary financial accounts to receive such monies for proper compensation, but because the monies are only dispersed on a quarterly basis, the clinics might see a need for registration fees due to the lack of money in the account.

The Zimbabwean government has taken a big step in investing in their human capital by trying to prolong the health of their citizens.  This is evident by providing free birthing to pregnant women to ensure that they can have a safe and healthy birth.  This should reduce infant mortality within the country knowing that women have the ability to go to a medical clinic and have their child delivered safely.  No longer should they have to give birth in an un-sanitized environment.  The financial issue is whether these rural clinics are truly receiving their funds or it they are, is someone who is responsible for distributing the funds keeping it for them.  The article did not speak about any oversight in ensuring that the clinics are truly getting the monies that they deserve, but I am sure that it is extremely difficult to visit some of these clinics to truly determine the status of where the money is truly going to.  The government has to be curious if their funds are being used appropriately if there are still reports of registering fess still being assessed to pregnant women upon receive. 

http://allafrica.com/stories/201304120663.html

Matt Partridge

04/12/2013 at 4:57pm

Blog 8: Governmental Healthcare System in South Africa

South Africa has begun to put into place a national healthcare insurance system.  It appears to be modeled after the UK system of having centralized healthcare in larger, more urban environments, with satellite clinics in the more rural areas that have the ability to provide the basics in primary healthcare, to include the needed support for women who are pregnant.  The article speaks about the current status of the South African government and their current abilities in changing over to the National Health Insurance system.  The country has a total of 3,880 healthcare facilities, and where the larger of these facilities (centralized hospitals) have passed the rigorous inspections and audits to assess their standards, the smaller facilities need more attention.  Not only is there a current country wide upgrade in medical technology but the personnel that is to be staffed to run these healthcare facilities is being updated as well.  The South African government has turned to Cuba for proper training of 1000 medical physicians, as well as invited another 95 Cuban nationals with medical degrees to come and work in the country almost immediately.  To try and rapidly initiate the National Health Insurance system within the country, the government has also contracted 500 private healthcare providers to get the system moving in the right direction, so everybody can be able to receive the healthcare that they deserve.  In the current budget “R150-million has been allocated to the NHI pilot sites… doubling in 2013/14 and rising to R450-million in 2014/15.”  That is about 16.4 million dollars this fiscal year and almost 50 million dollars in the 2014/2015 financial year.  This is a huge step not only for the South African government, but for the citizens who would greatly benefit from a nationalized government healthcare system. 

A person’s right to healthcare is a fundamental right, and now the South African government is finding a way to be able to provide that right to all of its country’s citizens.  Through proper internal budgetary planning, assistance from already supportive countries, and the financial support to improve the national healthcare infrastructure from the World Bank, the idea of National Health Insurance for the country of South Africa is going to become a reality.  As eluded to in the article, the healthcare system that is going to be put in place is going to be similar to the United Kingdom’s, where a large portion of the population benefits from a government run health system, but still has the ability for those who can afford to participate in a private health system.  In South Africa, before the nationalized health bill was passed in the government, this was the only type of health care that was available.  I am sure that there will still be remnants of the private health care; the issue that the government needs to overcome is the stereotypical gap in care between government and private healthcare.  It appears that they are on the right tract in improve a governmental healthcare system by bringing in current physicians that work in the country and provide training for future physicians, but only time will tell how effective the National Health Insurance system for South Africa really is.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201304030751.html?viewall=1

Matt Partridge

4/04/2013 at 2:50 pm

Blog 7: Innovative Financing

Economic downturn has its effects on everything to include financial gifts for countries suffering from HIV, AIDS, malaria, and TB.  The article is an interview with Philippe Douste-Blazy, board chairman of the international financing mechanism for the UNITAID initiative.  UNITAID’s purpose is to find ways of funding the fight against these certain epidemics that plague the African continent.  He says the biggest help that they have succeeded in raising money is through various types of innovative financing, one of them being a levy on airplane tickets.  Basically, it is like paying one or two extra dollars on top of the plane ticket that would directly go to the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB on the African continent.  Over the past five years they have raise two billion dollars from this initiative.  Douste-Blazy goes on to say that these health issues are a global problem, so it literally should receive financial support from everybody, not just from certain countries who what to give a little bit of money.  “If you can buy a plane ticket, you can pay one dollar more; you have no difference between [the contributions of] developed and developing countries. The strength of this concept is [it fosters not only] North-South solidarity but also South-South solidarity.”  A reason why more countries, like the United States, has not joined the UNITAID’s innovative financing initiative for fighting health issues is that people, by nature, are generous, but when forced to give up more of their money without their say, that is where they have the problem.  Another reason is financing such an initiative that, from a prospective country’s perception, their stock market is going to be bypassed and then their country’s economy will not be able to hold weight within the world’s economy.  Douste-Blazy ends with saying that his priority is to ride the coattails of capitalism and take innovative financing further than it has gone before to raise more money for the healthcare programs of the African continent.

The inequality gap between the rich (developed/postindustrial) countries and the poor (developing) countries is what is partially causing the healthcare issues amongst those that cannot afford it.  When the AIDS epidemic came to the forefront of the world’s attention, many countries acted with aid and support.  But, that was when the economy was in good health and now it most definitely is not.  New, creative ways are now being developed and implemented to financially support countries that are affected by such health issues.  HIV/AIDS is most definitely a global issue, so, like the article says, it should be truly a global problem.  Every single person should support it.  But, not to be insensitive to those living below the poverty line, imposing a tax/levy on a highly demanded, relatively high cost commodity, like a plane ticket, will affect those who truly have the disposable income to support it.  The tax/levy only being a fraction of a percent of what the plane ticket is still goes a long way when millions of plane seats a filled each year.  Personally, I would not mind having to pay one to two dollars more to support the fight against HIV/AIDS, but I really would not want to know about it either.  By allowing the inequality gap to continue to widen the most poorest of the poor will never be able to elevate themselves to a point where they can afford some of the necessities in life that most in the developed world take for granted, like healthcare. 

http://allafrica.com/stories/201303191308.html?viewall=1

Matt Partridge

03/21/2013 at 4:10 pm

Blog 6: HIV funding and health systems

The article’s concern is whether or not the many countries of Africa that accept outside financial aid to fund the many HIV/AIDS programs have actually helped the overall healthcare system for that country, or if it was just a fix for the HIV/AIDS epidemic itself.  The answer is really undetermined, because no one will really know how well each individual country has adapted to epidemic response until the donor countries begin to retract their funds, which has already begun to happen slightly.  The amount of money that was given to the continent as a whole is significant, “from 5.5 percent of health aid in 1998 to nearly half of it almost 10 years later.”  That is a lot of money that each country relies on to fund a various amount of its healthcare system, but the argument remains that either the monies given to fight the epidemic has helped fund a more equitable healthcare access within the countries, or that the monies did nothing specific for the countries but help fight AIDS directly.  During the initial response to the AIDS epidemic donations were used to set up clinics to fight HIV/AIDS directly, and did nothing for any other health institutions within the country.  But, as the availability of antiretroviral drugs became more available, and the amount of services being provided to prevent the spread from mother to baby during pregnancy, the funding for HIV/AIDS began to be used in other capacities that still supported the epidemic, but also other health issues as well.  The only problem is that not every country might have taken part in diverse use of the funds, and those countries are going to be the ones that will suffer the most when the donor countries begin to heavily retract their funds.  The successes of the support to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa are true with the KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa, one of the hardest hit regions of the epidemic, has seen an increase in life expectancy of 11years since 2004, due to South Africa’s antiretroviral program.  Their program already services around 1.7 million people with a plan to increase that number by another 500,000 people over the next few years. There is no way that they would be able to accomplish this with the impending plan for donated funds to dry up for this to happen.  So the country of South Africa clearly has a plan to be more self-sufficient in their healthcare system, and there are others like it.

Equality is a human right that the United Nations, in particular, strives for the entire planet.  No one person should ever be oppressed for who they are, even if they were to have a life threatening, contractible disease like HIV or AIDS.  This equality was recognized in the 1990s when the African continent was experiencing an AIDS epidemic.  There may have been a fear of the AIDS virus spreading to the rest of the world creating, quite literally, a global issue instead of it being concentrated in one region, but none the less, equality of those affected by the virus was an issue.  There is no doubt that monies in the support of the healthcare issues on the African continent help, but is it really doing the individual countries any good that now, after a significant time period, these countries should be able to supp[ort themselves more, instead of looking for a handout.  If the more developed countries continue to fund the majority of these programs countries will never be independent and will always feel some sort of obligation to the more developed ones, keeping a gap between those who are perceived as privileged and those who are not.  Again, equality is a human right, and that same concept of equality applies not only to the individual, but a group, a region, a country. 

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97601/Has-HIV-funding-revived-lagging-health-systems

Matt Partridge

03/07/2013 at 7:39 pm

Blog 5: Reducing Funding for HIV/AIDS

According to the article, Tanzania is facing severe financial aid cutbacks to fund its HIV/AIDS programs.  Even though, the percentage of the Tanzanian population with contracted HIV/AIDS has decreased over the past ten years, with the prevalence in the last four from 5.7% to 5.1%, still is a major health concern for the Tanzanian government.  “However, it has been alarmingly noted that new infections especially among the youths and special groups like prisoners and prostitutes have been increasing.In recent past foreign aid and monetary support came from the United States, Global Fund, World Bank, and many countries throughout Europe, but with the economic crisis that has gripped the world, these countries have had to reduce its financial support globally, and usually health aid is the first to go.  The struggle for the Tanzanian government is a budgetary one, where these developed countries and financial institutions used to cover approximately 90% of its HIV/AIDS programs, but now only have reduced that by 60%.  This leaves a significant gap for the governmental budgetary committee to make up where it used to be a rather small one.  Fortunately, the Tanzanian government realizes that there is going to be a significant financial downfall to supports its HIV/AIDS programs and have a proposed budget to overcome these downfalls, but the details are being kept very secretive until it has been officially approved by the Cabinet.

 

HIV/AIDS is a well known problem associated with the African continent.  Being that it is the leading cause of death within the continent, it becomes a very serious social problem.  Majority of the African continent is underdeveloped and relies on more developed countries for financial aid, not only for health and medical issues that have seemed to consume the continent.  Historically, developed countries have taken advantage of the lesser developed countries of the African continent, and where that is still true today, it appears to be more of the global corporations that are exploiting the resources of the land.  The outward persona for a more developed country is to be “above” such things as exploitation.  That is why the use of aid for such serious issues like HIV/AIDS gets so much positive attention for those that support the eradication of these types of diseases.  But, the reality is that if these countries truly cared and believed in bettering the global fight towards these illnesses, then they would not reduce their financial aid so drastically at a time when clearly it benefits.  I can understand that in this global economic time the need to cut back spending and reduce the overall budget, but it comes at the expense of others who desperately needs its support.

 

http://allafrica.com/stories/201303010102.html

 

Matt Partridge

 

03/01/2013 at 3:07 pm

Blog 4: Exercising Africa

Exercising is good advice to anyone and that goes too for the very diverse population of Africa.  Many people would think that Africans would not need to exercise with how the continent is displayed though the various venues of social media, but what really is happening is the opposite.  Yes, a vast majority of the continent is extremely rural, but the urban areas are where the population grows due to the availability of jobs.  These jobs are not just those that are available to the poor, but blue collar jobs that would normally be very few to come by.  “Also, there is a rise in industries that improve standards of living. These range from transportation to fast food companies.”  It has been displayed in times past when Africans travel west to the more developed countries and get absorbed in their culture.  They begin to rely on the conveniences of western civilizations and forget that health is not just a hereditary aspect, but a physical maintenance one as well.  The benefits of exercise far out way the very few adverse effects that exercise can have on the body and those who have migrated from Africa have begun to realize that.  Lauretta Ashu, a native to Cameroon, grew up in Africa, was educated in the United States and has started a blog to try and bring about the positive effects of exercise to the African continent.  She realizes that with the globalization of western society emerging itself onto the continent, the population needs to start now to prevent the adverse effects that what westernization can bring fast food.  There are already so many health issues associated with the continent, due to its lack of heath care systems, the last thing the populace needs is to have issues with obesity and diabetes, which will cost more money that a vast majority does not have.  Ms. Ashu encourages all peoples to exercise at least thirty minutes a day, four days a week, which is pretty close to what many health institutions in the United States say.  Besides exercise, eating the right foods in the proper quality and quantity is another way of preventive medicine to avoid certain foreseeable health problems from occurring. 

Globalization is only making the world smaller by making what we think, as Americans, as everyday readily available items to those who can only dream of them.  Corporations that are able to manipulate the push of globalization are the larger, wealthier ones.  The ones that can afford to not only take advantage of the local population in the country being exploited, but as well as bring a product that is marketable, convenient, and “new” or “western”.  Unfortunately, these products only show up in the growing urban environments where many people have to move to, to locate a line of work to support them.  This may not seem fair, but when talking about products that could have long term negative effects on health, something that is already a concern within the African continent, may not be a bad thing that it is isolated to those living in the urban environment.  The problem then comes in that these products also prey on the poor because they are cheap and convenient, just another way that the people of Africa can be exploited.  They were exploited for their land and resources during the colonization period, now they are being exploited still for their resources, but cheap labor too, and now large corporations are attempting to procure every last piece of money by selling them products that will cause them long term health problems.  Health problems that could eventually become another concern, globally, that will cause more aid to be sent to the continent for something that could have been prevented in the first place.

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/diaspora/artikel.php?ID=265507

Matt Partridge

02/21/2013 at 7:12 pm

Blog 3: Difficulty Restoring Healthcare in the CAR

The Central African Republic (CAR), formerly known as the French Congo during the colonization of the African continent, is struggling after its most recent violent outbreak between the rebel forces and the CAR government.  More than 80,000 people were displaced by the recent month long conflict and even though it has only been a matter of days since a peace agreement has been met, the reopening of the most modest of healthcare facilities is proving extremely difficult.  “A scarcity of health workers and a lack of medical supplies are among the problems”, not to mention that during the short conflict these facilities were pretty much abandoned in fear for the safety of the personnel that worked there.  In some of the areas that have been able to restore some sort of healthcare, a nominal fee is needed to assist in partially paying for the used supplies/medicine, all of this due to the lack of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) support.  This fee is more detrimental to the current individual’s livelihood due to the lack of commercialism in the area.  The rebel controlled portions of the country have many people that do not normally live there, concerned for their well being, therefore causing even the smallest amounts of money vital.

Socially, everybody should be entitled to some form of healthcare.  Weather it is free government healthcare like Canada, for profit private healthcare like the United States, or healthcare aid like the majority of war-torn Africa receives.  Nobody should have to suffer through life without health guidance from a professional.  Private healthcare dominates the globe, but typically developed countries have this availability.  Healthcare aid is a huge support for developing countries and without this type of aid many more people would become seriously ill or dead without the medical necessities that are provided.  Countries, like the Central African Republic, that are in a constant strife between two or more fighting factions prevent the necessary health aid that is deserved by the country’s population.  I know that it is naïve to hope for world peace, but at least the innocent people that are a part of the country should be entitled to their human rights.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97452/Healthcare-still-disrupted-in-the-Central-African-Republic

Matt Partridge

02/14/2013 at 1155 pm

Blog 2: Counterfeit Drugs to Africa

Usually, when we think of eastern medicine we think of China and all of their ritualistic medically practices like grinding up rhinoceros horn and drinking it with tea to cure some aliment.  It was thought of as something very rare and highly sought after to cure some of the worst medical conditions.  The issue then as it is now is where and how do the Chinese get rhinoceros horn, and the answer usually came from exploiting the African continent since they have the most abundant amount of this kind of animal on the planet.  Now, the exploitation no longer lies with the illegal killing, harvesting, and export of rhinoceros horn, but the import of counterfeit medications.  Medications that are needed to prevent and cure one of most potentially controlled disease on the planet…malaria.

  It is no secret that the African continent has issues with several medical conditions and disease, and that malaria is one of them.  To many people, this would mean to ensure that vaccines are up to date and to have taken a full regiment of malaria medication before visiting.  But, it seems that others have a different angle when it comes to viewing some of Africa’s medical problems and that is greed.  In this case it happens to be larger pharmaceutical corporations producing, packaging, and shipping counterfeit/fake malaria drugs that have little to no active ingredient.  In places like Uganda and Tanzania, somewhere around one-third of the medications were fake or substandard to what the package declared.  This allows for a huge profit margin to the pharmaceutical company that makes it, and prevents the control of what should be an easily controllable disease.  The truly unfortunate thing is that the World Health Organization (WHO) has anti-counterfeiting and quality control programs to try and prevent these kinds of things from happening.  But, the problem is that without collaboration and stronger enforcement on regulatory policies between governments, this issue of medical counterfeiting is going to be a continuing problem.

The main reason why anyone would counterfeit anything, it does not have to be drugs, is greed; to make more money.  It’s the reason why drug dealers “cut” cocaine down from its original, or why someone would try to print and pass off currency.  This is no different.  The Chinese pharmaceutical companies that are doing this are only out to get more money and in doing so are exploiting those who need these kinds of drugs to survive.  This exploitation is a way of global stratification and explained using a somewhat dependency theory.  The African continent needs these kinds of drugs, but has no ability to manufacture them.  So, a corporation in a more developed country manufactures these drugs for the people of Africa and tries to make a profit.  When this company realizes that the people are dependent on the medication they begin to devise ways to make more money, wither by increasing the cost, or in this case producing inferior product to people who really do not know better.  In this case, the country that seems responsible for the exploitation is China, and where the government may not be directly responsible, through lack of regulations and control they are to blame.

http://www.care2.com/causes/fake-chinese-medicine-threatening-lives-in-africa.html

Matt Partridge

02/07/2013 at 11:20 pm

Blog 1: WHO reforms

            On January 21 the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) opened the 132^nd Executive Board meeting of the United Nations (UN).  Margaret Chan spoke about many things that the WHO was able to positively accomplish over the past year, but still stressed the “importance of cost-effectiveness and results-driven operations at a time of global economic austerity and precarious funding”.  Chan, as well as the other Executive Board members of the UN, know that WHO reform is going to be key, and Chan seemed to be driving the point of the usefulness of the WHO and what is has been able to accomplish in recent past.  She spoke of great strides in collaborations with private sector about vaccine donations and went as far to name one such pharmaceutical company that has joined in contract to provide ten percent of its influenza vaccines in the event of a breakout.  But, even with the types vaccine and monetary donations from around the world Chan emphasized that a solid, balanced budget must be a priority for reform in order for the WHO to be able to continue its long term benefits to the world.  They have already reduced their organizational staff by about one thousand personnel in order to try and help with budget constraints.  One of the last things that the board is review by the end of the meeting is to review and provide guidance on the Global Vaccine Action Plan, which is suppose to provide direction on what should be the WHO’s immunization priorities through 2020.  This will help the WHO have a strategic course of action if there were, or will, be multiple disease/viral outbreaks at a time; which area gets priority, or how can both epidemics be taken care of at the same time.

            There are several things in this world that we as individuals need to cut back on, but health care is definitely not one of them.  For the WHO to have to cut back their budget and put into place certain reforms to fall within budgetary constraints is absurd, but unfortunately that right now is the world we live in.  It’s great that pharmaceutical companies from the private sector have not only donated product but money, eighteen million dollars.  But, that is just a minuscule fraction of what their profit margin is for the year, and yet we see it as a win.  In order for manageable influenza, HIV control, and eradicated malaria we, as all of the non-developing nations, need to provide more to the WHO than what they have now. 

http://www.ip-watch.org/2013/01/21/packed-who-executive-board-agenda-highlights-need-to-streamline-priorities/

Matt Partridge

01/21/2013 at 8:57 pm

Health/ Disease

My name is Matt Partridge and the biggest reason why I have chosen to write my blog health and disease in the world is because I am a pre-nursing major here at UNCG. I believe that I should stay focused on my goals of becoming a nurse and then much further, so I should be concerned of some issues that are affecting global health at the moment. I hope that this will not only enlighten me to some of the more grievous health concerns circling the world at this moment, but also benefit me when I have reached my career goal of becoming a nurse.

 

7:07 pm 01/16/2013

Matt Partridge