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Healthcare & Disease
The issue of healthcare in the developing world is truly a minefield. To attack debilitating and fatal diseases in the developing world requires more than just medication.
A wide range of facilities, including roads and transport, sanitation, rudimentary health education and awareness, sufficient budget resources and effective public health policies are needed to ensure health services are accessible, sustainable and effective.
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To meet the many challenges and complex enormity of the healthcare issue in the developing world requires a new level of participation and cooperation from the entire global community. Governments, official international organisations and non-profits all need to be more engaged, to work together if disease is to be treated and even prevented.
Interrelated problems
Poor health in the developing world comes from many interrelated problems. Medical issues include AIDS/HIV, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Diabetes as well as lower profile diseases such as Schistosomiasis, Onchocerciasis and Dengue Fever.
More fundamentally, countries lack the physical and effective public health systems, along with the educational and social programs needed to provide adequate services.
Inaccessibility
The lack of passable roads and transport networks means that patients are unable to reach the facilities they require. A lack of clean water and sewage treatment, overcrowded housing and a population exposed to a broad range of diseases preventable in developed countries all play a key role in furthering this problem, as does the urban concentration of facilities, which means that those based in rural communities often miss out.
Spending
Many developing nation governments are failing to make healthcare a spending priority, with problems of corruption, pilferage, waste and poor spending choices the main problems. For governments to adequately address problems with regard to healthcare, it is important to recognise and respond to broader challenges
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Pharmaceutical companies
Global pharmaceutical companies are keen to help with the pending crisis, donating badly needed medicines, sponsoring and supporting public health initiatives and helping raise awareness of the magnitude and complexity of public health issues in developing societies.
However, the pervasive nature of the problems faced means that – as is the case with emergency relief following natural disasters – medicine supply and distribution needs a clear structure and system to improve systems and in turn public health, with aggressive and coordinated action required by the global community.
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Infrastructure
Public health is primarily dependent on the condition of a country’s infrastructure, its roads, transport, electricity, access to clean water and poor communications facilities. The inadequacies in delivery systems and infrastructure pose challenges to the establishment and maintenance of good public health.
The success of any public health system depends on a government’s ability to fund it. Many governments spend less than $20 per patient annually, leaving them unable to deliver products and services to those who need them.
With regard to geography, too many facilities are located for political reasons and/or the choice of the physicians, as opposed to the need of the people they should be serving. One example is Nigeria, the clearest sign of the disparity among the various regions being that while in Lagos State there is one doctor for every 200 people, in Benue State there is one for every 129,000 people.
Meanwhile, in countries such as Zaire, Somalia, Rwanda and Liberia, less than half the population have access to healthcare facilities. In countries such as these, a disproportionately small amount of public budgets are allocated to preventative care, with facilities deteriorated to the point of disrepair. |
Insufficient personnel
The numbers of staff available to work within the healthcare sector within developing countries are unable to meet the immense demand. Overall in Africa, there is one doctor for every 10,000 people, with a heavy concentration in cities, leaving rural areas neglected.
Inefficiency and waste
A World Bank study recently found inefficiencies in procurement, storage, prescription and use of drugs, with only $12 of every allocated $100 used on patients. In some areas it is estimated that 50 per cent of drug stocks are stolen from hospitals and clinics, while profiteers are thought to sell large amounts of drugs outside the continent, mainly to Europe.
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The effects of poverty
Healthcare is affected by poor education and literacy levels, a lack of clean water, sanitation levels and malnourishment. These factors make the provision of basic healthcare all the more difficult.
The lack of education among women in particular in the developing world is seen as a major issue. Women often lack the most basic of rights, with widows married off to their late husbands’ brothers, men advised that sex with virgins under 10 offers a cure for HIV/AIDS and women turning to prostitution, often without protection. Deep-rooted problems within gender dynamics play their part in this; sexually transmitted diseases are often seen as ‘women’s diseases’, with victims often cast out from their families, with no food, shelter or access to their children. These disparities and resulting tensions prevent groups from receiving healthcare, with social attitudes worse to certain diseases.
Political systems
Many governments have failed to acknowledge the problems of HIV/AIDS, some countries even refusing to buy discounted medicines. There is much ignorance over medicines, with many deemed poisonous or worse than the actual diseases. Many governments have failed to make health a priority, while conflict and civil war has in many areas exacerbated the problems of famine and disease.
Inspiration can be taken by examples of successful political leadership; education efforts have been boosted in areas such as Senegal, Uganda, Thailand, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka, all low-income areas aided by firm commitment to healthcare. |
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