Venezuela’s devastating health care crisis
by Sofia Sorbelli, LSP Assisi/Italy
We all know that some parts of the world are characterised by extreme health care situations, often due to awful hygienic conditions. However, we all focus our attention on the same places which surely need to be helped, but at the same time we forget that there could be others where the situation is even worse, and our lack of information contributes to make it degenerate. That is what is happening in Venezuela, afflicted by an extreme economic, social and health crisis.
In fact, the health care system of the country is suffering because of a deep shortage of medical products which is forcing doctors to prescribe arguable cures, such as a forty-minute cold shower to face a high fever.
Furthermore, some illnesses such as diphtheria, which should have been eradicated from the country more than twenty years ago, are infecting the population again, highlighting the seriousness of the situation. Also the incredible number of gun shootings which occur everywhere in the cities and lately also in the hospitals, usually considered as shelters by the people, are part of the factors which have taken the level of mortality of the country to one of the highest in the world.
As reported by “The Guardian”, less than 10% of hospitals in Venezuela are fully operational and 81% of them have no medicines, no surgical materials and sterilised equipment. The clinics which are considered the best in the country would not be considered acceptable by any other government. Some rooms are constantly closed, and somewhere the shortage of beds forces patients to sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor in awful hygienic conditions. The equipment is broken and therefore not operational. Children are those who suffer most from this extreme crisis: indeed, many of them die every day from solvable problems such as malnutrition or illnesses which are curable with a correct hygiene. Another cause of death is their parents’ inability to buy expensive and not easily available medicines which are taken for granted in developed countries. Another serious problem is that more and more specialised doctors (oncologists, paediatricians, midwives) are leaving this desperate situation because they feel completely useless in facing their patients’ diseases if they do not have adequate equipment and drugs. However, most doctors decide every day to stay in the country not to abandon the citizens involved in this crisis, and above all to fight for justice, since the government of Venezuela is trying to hide the health care crisis. For example, when earlier in 2016 the president of the Venezuelan Association of Clinics and Hospitals in the state of Carabobo went on TV complaining about medical shortage, he was arrested and questioned for hours by the police. In addition to that, when foreign supporters in Miami, Bogotá and Panama sent medical supplies to Venezuela, the authorities blocked them and refused offers of help proposed by foreign charities. As reported by “La Repubblica”, an Italian newspaper, the opposition won the election in December 2016 and it is working to a referendum to dismiss the current Venezuelan President Maduro, who meanwhile is using all his power to exploit the population: he has just signed an administrative order to oblige public employees to work in the fields to face the food crisis.
The people are feeling completely abandoned by the authorities and therefore they have decided to respond to the situation: a group of them have signed a letter to the UN general secretary asking the Venezuelan situation be recognised as a humanitarian problem. Although lately the Venezuelan devastating crisis has been caught in the spotlight, most of all thanks to the meeting between the Venezuelan president and the Pope in October 2016, this situation is unfortunately still too hidden. And until it does not receive the attention it deserves, the possibilities of an improvement will be out of sight.
Image taken from Pixabay; Posted 03.03.2017 16:11
Access to health care in Africa
by Luisa Chiocchetti, LSP Assisi/Italy
Many diseases in Africa are lethal because they are not treated quickly and efficiently, and sometimes not treated at all.
Some, such as malaria, tuberculosis, or AIDS are well-known, but others are more specific to each country. Common ones include bilharzias, better known as Schitomiosiasis, Lassa fever, and polio, which is incurable. The list could be longer. All of these illnesses are caused by lack of hygiene, clean water, access to health clinics or to right treatments. Vaccinations are available but modern cures are not as common as traditional remedies, which are preferred by most of the population in poor countries because they are cheaper and considered more reliable.
In addition to this situation there are also wars and conflicts - often caused by the developed countries - determined by economic reasons. In such times, hospitals close and access to health care is impossible.
The good news is that some African countries are allocating part of their annual budget in health care in order to train their own medical professionals. Unfortunately, these often decide to go abroad to look for a better and more secure job. Notwithstanding the investment, aid from overseas remains fundamental.
Africa is a very complicated issue but I think that we have responsibilities towards its people. First of all I cannot see any difference between myself and an African girl for what concerns rights, dreams or feelings. Why should a selfish society determine this condition? Is it not surreal that an 18-year-old girl in Congo, for example, risks her life because she cannot drink clean water and because no institution can help her? This is due to the underdevelopment caused by the lack of education, economic progress and political stability.
It could seem it is not our problem, but do we allow their development? We own multinationals in Africa to exploit their resources, we close our eyes in front of conflicts and massacres or, worse, we supply the rebels with weapons. And all of this because we are selfish, because in our minds we think we are better than the developing countries. Those who manage the planet often forget the principle of equality among people and every human being's right to life.
The work of humanitarian associations, private benefactors and volunteers testifies that in every circumstance there is something good; there is hope, concrete help and improvement. So I think we simply have to ask ourselves what we can do to change our way of thinking, our daily routine, to raise awareness in our part of the world. We must not stop dreaming the world we want.
Photo taken by Simone Petrosino in Congo; Posted 03.03.2017 16:15
Medicines or not?
by Alessia Massimi, LSP Assisi/Italy
“If some drugs are harmful, is it better to put on the market certain pharmaceutical products that can be dangerous for the patients or is it better to leave the sick without drugs?”
It was this question I read in an article from Healthdesk by Antonio Michenzi about the lack of medicines, that made me think about one of the most important problems nowadays.
What I want to analyze is not the lack of drugs but the possibility that certain pharmaceutical products can turn out to be dangerous and the consequent choice of the Food and Drug Administration to stop their production. This situation is nicknamed “The regulators’ dilemma” by the European Medicines Agency. In fact, some people agree that it is better to risk a possible exposure to side effects by using a defective product rather than not having the product at all.
This issue is connected above all with the delivery of lifesaving medicines that can extend life. The thing to do is calculate the percentage of risk and the benefits of each medicine and then decide if is inevitable to remove such remedy from the market. In fact, it is important to remember that each drug is potentially harmful but, as explained by the pharmacologist Silvio Garattini, “We can accept that an antitumor is cancerous, if it helps us to heal, even though with the possibility in the distant future of the appearance of a new tumour. But we certainly cannot accept such a side effect in a medication against headaches.”
Image taken from Pixabay; Posted 04.03.2017 12:47
Dying for the lack of affordable medicines
by Lorenza Liguori, LSP Assisi/Italy
Every year 15 million people die from infectious diseases, and one third of the global population (90% in developing countries) has no access to medical care. Is the world going in a good direction? Who can really help? The answers to these questions exist.
Unfortunately, there are still people who cannot afford the necessary health care because they were born in the so-called developing countries. However, the excessive costs of vaccines and medicines are starting to be a burden, even for those who live in richer countries, and is causing social and economic problems on a global level. At this point, it is clear that the problem is not only that of being born on the "poor" side of the world, but rather the indifference and lack of interest of those who produce these drugs. Pharmaceutical companies and governments could help those who live in such a disastrous situation by reducing drug prices to a more reasonable level.
As reported in the article of The Guardian "The cost of drugs is killing us. How can we foster access for all?", the prices of modern vaccines are still higher than conventional ones, and this means that, for some countries, granting medicines for Malaria, or AIDS (which is the most widespread disease in developing countries) for example,, would mean diverting money that is useful for the construction of hospitals or for staff training as well.
Unfortunately, the price of vaccines and medicines is related to the cost of both research and development. However, as reported by many associations that try to improve the situation and raise awareness , these two factors should be separated or we will never find a solution.
The world of pharmaceutical companies is divided in two: on the one hand there are those who care about the problem and try to help by voluntarily lowering drug prices such as GSK, which has slightly reduced the price of PCV - pneumococcal vaccine - in the poorest countries. On the other there are those who block the production of drugs in these countries knowing that very few people could afford to buy them and their profit would be diminished. Another question arises: Can we talk of fatality when the necessary treatment exists? I think everyone can answer that.
Image taken from Pixabay; Posted 11.03.2017 14:19
Celina Hesselman - 31.03.2017 13:47
Reply to Luisa Chiocchetti - Access to health care in Africa
We fully agree with Luisa's thoughts and feelings. First of all, we think that we from the developed countries should start working on ourselves. We shouldn't see ourselves as better, smarter or above other countries. In the developed countries in Europe, a lot of people see the problem, they feel pitiful about the Africans and know a lot about the issues, but they are not willing to do anything about it. If and when we stop doing this, we will be able to help other people and countries with, for example, health care. To donate money, buy help kits or send as many that are interested in helping and taking care of others as possible, are some steps to helping the developing countries. So just don't understand that there is an issue or a problem, try to do something about it!
Patrycja, Celina and Eszter
Caring about the world
by Pietro Maccabei, LSP Assisi/Italy
The W.H.O. (World Health Organisation) has been trying to eradicate the Zika virus for long time. Nowadays it is difficult to think about the reason why some illnesses still do not have any cure or a vaccine, and this is due also to our lack of knowledge.
Zika is one of these "unknown" illnesses.
This virus appeared for the first time in Latin America and Africa during the 2007 epidemic. Unfortunately, nowadays the situation has become worse. In fact, the Zika virus has quickly reached the rest of the world and therefore the World Health Organization has started to work really hard to create a test and a vaccine to prevent a global epidemic.
The W.H.O declared that the test could be ready in a short time, but the vaccine will probably need several years to be ready to use. As reported by the New York Times, this virus appeared for the first time in Uganda in 1947, but scientists started working on a vaccine only in 2007, after a European woman contracted the virus following a trip to Africa
This situation is one of the several examples which demonstrate how we start caring about something only if it happens in contexts which are familiar to us. Is this good behavior to prevent and fight these devastating illnesses? Sometimes our selfishness and blindness can destroy any hope of reaction.
Images taken from Pixabay; Posted 08.04.2017 13:22
Drug-resistance in less developed countries
by Martina Merone, LSP Assisi/Italy
The medical definition of drug resistance is "the ability of bacteria and other microorganisms to withstand a drug that once stalled them or killed them." It is unbelievable how in less developed countries there’s a high rate of drug-resistance. The illnesses I am speaking about are mainly TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS. Researchers have found that 6% of new TB infections in west Africa are resistant to drugs. Six months are normally needed to cure TB but when the bacteria becomes resistant to different combinations of medicines the time increases as well as the costs.
Tuberculosis claims the lives of 1.8 million people worldwide each year. India has about a quarter of all the cases in the world, followed by Indonesia and China, which have about 10% each. Nigeria and Pakistan each account for 5% of cases.
According to the statistics made by Ravi Gupta, the principal author of a research conducted by the University College of London, 60% of infected people in Africa are resistant to Tenofovir, which is the medicine used to fight HIV, while in Europe the rate is 20%. This maybe is caused by bad distribution and delivery as well as inconstant assumption of the medicines.
It is a tragedy, and it is necessary to take measures.
This must be a wake-up call for the ministries of health because problems in Africa or in less developed countries are world issues and drug-resistance can become a global issue.
Posted 10.04.2017 09:34