Economic and Global Health Care - Essay Example

? Global Health Health care is a basic necessity that involves prevention, diagnosis, and the treatment of human ailments or injuries. The global health care, on the other hand, is the universal effort to combat major human diseases or ailments. This applies to both developing and developed nations. In the recent decades, the developing nations have joined hands to provide effective health care services in their countries as well as in the third world nations. For instance, the U.S and other economically stable nations have established organizations like Control Disease Centre (CDC) for disease monitoring. The CDC has played a greater role in controlling diseases like malaria, TB, and HIV-AIDS (Skonlik, 2003). However, there are economic constraints limiting effective health care provision in the universe as a whole. This analysis is about three common economic issues confronting global health care today as well as in the next decade. It also tends to provide likely solutions to the three issues among other facts related to factors compromising effective health care provision globally. Poverty is one of the common factors compromising the quality of health care today. The Agenda 21 and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) define poverty as surviving on less than a dollar each day. It can also mean lack of basic human needs or having it but in inadequate amounts. The United Nations defines basic needs to be food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, and security. Poverty exists in all corners of the world. However, it is concentrated in the developing nations as well as in random corners of developed countries (Merson, 2011). There are several factors that contribute to this problem. One of them is environmental constraints like drought. Drought is the state of insufficient water supply in a certain region. Prolonged drought leads to desertification where agricultural activities like crop cultivation or livestock rearing are compromised. Drought can be brought by both human and natural activities. Human activities include uncontrolled deforestations, poor cultivation methods, and global warming. The essence of unsustainable development, where projects are developed without considering the environmental implications, is also a great contributor to drought. Lack of a stable global economy is another major contributor to inadequate health care. This is indicated by the daily fluctuations in the global exchange rates and loan interest rates. Some of the contributing factors to this are natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, storms, and hurricanes. Furthermore, there are some human activities that disrupt economic developments hence causing the instability of the global economy (Levine, 2004). These include terrorism, hooliganisms, looting, and wars. There are also cartels that hoard major useful products like petroleum and other important food stuffs. Some developed nations may also control the flow of their currency to manipulate the global economy for their own benefits. Both developed and developing nations have different roles to stabilize the global economy. For instance, major raw materials like rubber, tea, coffee, metal ores, and crude oil are extracted from Africa among other developing regions. It is the role of the developed nations to apply their advanced technology to transform such raw materials into useful or valuable end products (Brock, 2009). Lack of sufficient medical practitioners is another important factor that compromises the quality of global health care. This issue is contributed by the declined number of medical students in both private and public universities among other learning institutions. The modern students opt to pursue humanities courses that are less time consuming, and generally not demanding compared to medical or scientific courses that have a wide curriculum and generally complex. Research indicates that traditional institutions that offered science oriented courses have been transformed to art and humanities courses from the great decline of both regional and foreign students who wish to pursue them. Furthermore, we live in a generation where a majority of people are making a good living out of personal interests and hobbies and not necessarily from white collar jobs. Career flexibility has enabled medical professionals like doctors and nurses opt to seek better paying jobs like computer programmers, real estate consultants and developers, freelance writers, financial consultants, freelance tutors, and lecturers among other professions. Medical courses are more expensive than others. Consequently, a majority of students from middle or lower classes’ families may opt to pursue the affordable art or humanity oriented courses (Markle, 2007). Effects of the issues on health care Research indicates that poverty is currently one of the limiting factors of global health care and might continue to do so even ten years to come. First, the majority of people in the third world nations opt to seek traditional witchdoctors due to lack of sufficient resources to purchase certified conventional or herbal medicine. This compels them to put their full trust on such witchcraft which later proves to be ineffective. A recent medical research conducted by CDC and the University of Toronto indicates that about 56% of Africans succumb to lighter diseases like malaria and fever due to lack of prior treatments and over reliance on witchcraft. Our economy keeps deteriorating hence it is more likely that the poverty level might even double in the next decade. Another implication of poverty is indicated in the wide spread of sexually transmitted disease like HIV-AIDS among others. Despite the fatality of the disease, some people still make a living on prostitution. This is in both developed and developing nations. Research indicates that about four million people get infected by the deadly viral disease on a yearly basis. This might even worsen some years to come. Drought is a precursor of poverty more so in developing nations. A few years ago, the United Nations declared drought as a subject of poverty to be one of the greatest problems restraining major efforts of developments in the universe as a whole. People tend to use wood as the major source of fuel in developing and developed nations. Continued uncontrolled deforestations would mean no roots to hold the soil particle together and no branches to break wind among other consequences. Major conventional medicines are manufactured from trees or plants as the main raw materials. Drought would therefore mean insufficient raw materials required to manufacture medicines. Drought has caused extinction of major medicinal plants like the Aloe vera, marijuana, Lady Ferns, California poppy, blood flower and tansy among others. Prolonged drought is likely to occur due to the increased level of global warming. Lack of adequate plants to manufacture medicinal plants may worsen in the next generation should the current generation take it lightly. Drought comes with an extra hot temperature that is likely to activate disease causing organisms like bacteria, fungi and virus and protozoa among others. Medical studies and researches indicate there is a big difference in terms of disease prevalence in sub-Saharan countries and polar countries like Russia and major parts of Europe. Diseases like malaria, cholera, TB and Bilharzias are due to its high temperature that activates the disease causing organisms. Drought tends to limit food production, yet food is part and parcel of effective health care. Reduced food would imply taking recommended medicine yet there is insufficient food to strengthen the human body system like a circulatory system among others. Poor countries cannot effectively stock or run their health care facilities. This would be so due to lack of resources to purchase advanced medical machinery and hire the best qualified medical professionals. The majority of people in developing nations in Africa and Asia die from malaria and fever among other lighter diseases due to the lack of instant or prior appropriate health care services. The patients are forced to commute longer distances before reaching the nearest health care facilities. Their conditions are always in a critical stake due to exposure to hot weather which activates disease causing organisms to their optimal state. As a result, some of the patients die on the way or on arrival in the nearest medical facilities. Poverty also ensures such medical centers have inadequate facilities and professionals. Fluctuation of the global economy is another vital factor against efforts to ensure a sustainable global health care. Regional and international lending agencies provide their loans depending on the current rates of the Central bank. This means that fluctuating rates might discourage developed nations from seeking such loans to strengthen the health care status in developing nations in Africa and Asia among other continents where such medical aid is required. The majority of health care programs in poor nations is sponsored by the U.S and other developed nations on a loan scheme. Fluctuating interest rates would mean that the borrower is unlikely to repay any loaned amount in good time because the rates would keep increasing the amount to be paid to the loaning agencies or organizations (McCracken, 2012). Global economic fluctuations have implications on the costs of health care facilities and medicine. Think of a nation whose annual budget on health care facilities is about $20,000 only for the fluctuating effects to raise such expenses to $30,000. This would mean some of the vital medical equipment will be omitted for the budget to be satisfactory. And this means a compromised health care in the region. Such fluctuations raise the costs of drugs and health care services that a normal citizen cannot afford. An economic fluctuation is an unpredictable issue that is likely to occur even ten decades to come. This would mean compromising the health care come that time. Lack of sufficient health care professionals is another problem facing the global health care. The increasing rates of the population is subject to an increasing number of patients. This would mean that the available health care professionals are assigned to more patients which compromise the quality of their services. There has been a major complaint that a majority of qualified doctors, nurses, and dentists are leaving public health care facilities for prestigious private ones. A good number of patients depend on the public hospitals due to their costly friendly charges. Furthermore, some nations like Canada have a Health care Act that guarantees each registered citizen to health insurance in public hospitals. Such migrations of health care professionals would mean compromising health care services in the public hospitals where the majority seek assistances. Developed countries occasionally sponsor some health care programs where some of their health care professionals are mobilized to developing nations to offer charitable health care operations like surgeries and dental consultancies among other services in the developing nations. Inadequate health care professionals would imply complexities in organizing these arrangements (Learning, 2003). This problem has also led to recruitment of unqualified health care professionals like interns or medical students who lack the experiences required to conduct some medical procedures. This has caused unexpected deaths or complications among patients. Such occurrences are common in developing nations where there are more public hospitals than private ones. The middle or lower classes are likely to attend the public facilities with insufficient doctor or nurses. Research indicates that the majority of nurses or doctors in such institutions with sufficient staff are likely to treat patients their without respect out of the frustrations of being overworked. As a result, patients in critical conditions are likely to succumb to death from ill treatment and frustrations from their nurses or doctors. Specific recommendations The issue of poverty is currently being addressed by the developed nations through international organizations like the United Nations among others. But for the sake of improved global health care, more can still be done. Industrialized nations should compensate developing nations on the amount of Carbon, sulfur oxides responsible for global warming among other environmental constraints in their countries. A few years ago, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) during its annual meeting declared that they would mobilize some funds from the industrialized nations to compensate for their amount of air population. Such funds should be used to improve the health care sector in such developing nations. The government of such poor countries should formulate health care legislations where each registered citizen should access free or cheap health care through national insurance schemes. Drought was once declared a global disaster, meaning a greater effort should apply to eradicate it or reduce its effects. Currently, there are global environmental days like the World’s water and tree planting days which are aimed at improving the global environment. The governments should also come up with policies with heavy penalties to protect the remaining forests from further exploitations. People should be encouraged to shift from expensive conventional medicine to herbal or natural juice medicine. This would reduce the number patients seeking medical services in the public and private health care facilities. Asia has taken a great move in sensitizing its people on the importance of herbal and natural juices medicinal values (Lee, 2013). They have learnt to be their own doctors and this has greatly improved their general health. On the fluctuating global economy, international financial institutions like the World Bank should be lenient when it comes to loaning or supporting health care projects in both developed and developing nations. They should use attractive interest rates to attract more health care stakeholders and improve the general status of global health. Humans should also avoid activities that are against global economic development like terrorism, looting and war among others to ensure stable global economy. Super powerful nations like the U.S should use its powers to ensure there is a smooth flow or distribution of useful commodities like fuel to stabilize the global economy. Global economic legislations should be established by the international judiciary to safeguard the distribution of resources from developed nations to developing nations and vice-versa (Youde, 2012). There are scenarios where the U.S has used its super power to exploit developing nations, more so from Africa in terms of its natural resources like oil, gold, titanium, and aluminum ores among other valuable natural resources. This would automatically in stabilizing the economy of such nations. Countries from a particular region should come together and manage their resources without depending on others to strengthen their country. The late former president of Libya Gadaffi opted greatly for the unity of African nations for the sake of strengthening their economy. The issues of inadequate health care professionals should be addressed by increasing scholarships to encourage students from both rich and poor families to pursue medicine related courses. Developed nations should establish medical schools in developing nations to increase graduates in medical field. Each country should come up with policies that discourage doctors and nurses migrating from public hospitals to private ones. Each government should provide attractive packages for its medical practitioners as a motivation to such professionals and the students wishing to be doctors, dentists, and nurses in the future (Ehiri, 2009). Finally, the World bank and other international financial bodies should appreciate the initiative of increasing the number of world’s medical practitioners by setting aside a reasonable amount to improve the status of medical learning institutions in each continent, and upon graduation, such students can be posted in any part of the world. Likelihood of addressing such issues Reduced poverty levels would mean sufficient health care facilities like advanced medical machinery, modern effective drugs, and comfortable space in the health care facilities. All this would mean improved global health care hence reduced mortality rates and increase in global population. A stable economy will imply affordable health care to both developed and developing nations. Finally, sufficient number of medical practitioners will lead to improved health care services in both private and public hospitals. Generally, observing the above issues would mean improved health care which is the reverse of increased death rates. The population would increase and environmental degradation would be on an increasing trend since people would require increased infrastructure like roads and residential facilities. References Brock, B. (2009). Global Health Ethics. New York: Cambridge University press. Ehiri, J. (2009). Maternal and Child Health. USA: Springer. Lavine, R. (2004). Millions saved:Proven sucess in Global Health. USA: Peterson Institute. Learning, J. (2003). Global health challenges fro human security. USA: Global Equity initiative. Lee, K. (2013). Asian's role in governing global health. USA: Routledge. Markle, W. (2007). Understanding Global Health. New York: McGraw Hill Professional. McCracken, K. (2012). Global Health. USA: Routledge. Merson, M. (2011). Global Health. USA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Skolnik, R. (2003). Essentials of Global Health. USA: Jones & Bartlett learning. Youde, J. (2012). Global Health Governance. USA: Polity press. Read More