Africa's Health Care Crisis Essay

Children who are poor are most often born into poverty. Poverty is the lack of necessary needs in order to survive. Whether this be shelter, food, or water, most comes from a lack of cash flow through the family. Other situations can be divorces, children joining or being taken by rebel forces, parents passing away, or even situations of abuse. Statistics say that, “Around 55% of people live below the poverty line, living on less than a dollar each day. Areas with the greatest number of poor are particularly in the east of the country, where conflict continues”. With the majority of poor people living in the east, this also means that healthcare is worse there. When living conditions are not sanitary and there malnutrition, this causes people to become more susceptible to menial diseases. With all these factors taken into account, “The capital, Kinshasa, contains around 20-25,000 children who sleep rough and survive by begging”. Without means to help support these starving children, the country will continue to stay in this unproductive state; there needs to be a prevention of these preventable diseases killing the

These scenarios are in complete contrast with some of the countries of poor health care system. One of these countries is Nigeria which has been suffering from a stagnant health care system. Its people either have limited access to health care or none at all. Many blame this problem to the prevalence of fake drugs, AIDS epidemic and the unhealthy lifestyles of the people while others point at the lack of health policy as the culprit.

The cause of bad health for millions of underprivileged population is poverty, thus poverty and poor health worldwide are inextricably interconnected. The causes of poor health are rooted in political, social and economic injustices. Poverty is both a cause and a result of poor health therefore it increases the chances of poor health. Communities are enslaved in poverty hence poor health is the end results of poor nutrition because the community can’t afford a balanced diet. Infectious and neglected tropical diseases kill and weaken millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people each year, for example, in Zambia children die from a preventable disease called malaria due to poverty.

During my numerous trips to Nigeria to visit my extended family, I saw firsthand how international health disparities can affect communities. It is often challenging to make the highest standard of care available to all groups and individuals here, and I became increasingly motivated to devote myself to the mission of reducing health disparities in African countries. People in my family, regardless of societal class, suffered from various illnesses including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and polio because of poor access to quality healthcare services. My goal is to return to underserved communities in the United States and Nigeria after being armed with the training from the University of Michigan School of Information that will allow me make

Poverty and poor health worldwide are inseparably related. Poor health is a direct effect of growing up in poverty; as children living in low economic families may not have access to adequate medical health coverage. Which means the child will not have proper immunization and checkup that they need to ensure good health. Studies show when a child grows up in poverty the child can be underweight (Boyden). Poor under lined illness may also lead to issues throughout a lifespan. Poverty increases neglect of health issues. That causes more health problems which ends in death. Statistics also show that living in poor rule areas, with low quality schools. Even if the parents are highly educated and employed, the employment

The poor areas have many less doctors than the wealthy spots, even though the rural areas suffer from much harsher diseases on a larger scale. The countries either provide medical training for their own citizens or fund their training from somewhere else, but once the students have the skills to save lives, they move to different places for higher pay. This issue lies not only in South Africa, but in the entire continent. For example, for every Liberian doctor working in Liberia, there are two working abroad. Not only is there a shortage of doctors in general (averaging about 1.15 doctors for every 1,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa) but a shortage of nurses and midwives. Over two-thirds of mothers in Africa have no health professionals to guide them through hardships regarding pregnancy and childbirth, causing Africa alone to be responsible for over one half of the world’s infant and maternal

In recent years, Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone have launched major healthcare initiatives in order to expand and improve access to services. However, the state of health systems for the last 20 years is difficult to overcome. Liberia and Sierra Leone were each embroiled in civil wars until the mid-2000s. Porous borders and a shared diamond belt meant that their conflicts were often shared, as political strife, violence, looting, armed forces, and refugees moved to neighboring countries. , Guinea in particular was on the receiving end of refugees. During that time in all three countries, health systems were uniformly poor, with under-staffed and under-resourced facilities, significant health disparities, and almost no systematic infectious disease surveillance or control.

When analyzing the global health care crisis, one should pay particular attention of the problem from both the macro and micro scale. Overlooking either side of the issue wastes both valuable time and resources during an era that cannot afford such loss. Some argue that health care is a fight that politicians must win to enact change. Others say the crisis is simply another economic matter that will eventually resolve itself under the theories of supply and demand. When we look at these explanations without seriously considering the issues that arise in the microcosm, we expose ourselves to moral hazard. In Banker to the Poor (1), Nobelaureate Muhammad Yunus describes how a great deal of change can result from looking at the problem from a

Government officials in Africa argue the inefficient response during the critical threshold and the amount of money spent on establishing an American health care system parallels the imperialism movement and has left the countries vulnerable to future outbreaks, indebted and currently still unprepared. The monetary “loans”, less than half of which actually reached affected countries last year failed to educate the public (Duval). This raises the question of owing money that was not distributed to tackle immediate threats but attempted to repair years of corruption and unstable health care

Africa is the cradle of the humanity, and the second most populated continent. West Africa has suffered from lack of infrastructure and healthcare. This handicap is characterised by the weather knowing that the west in close to the equator. The tropical climate bring a lot of mosquitos, wich brings malaria to the children and the women. One of the major need are the number of doctors is low. Most African countries import their medicine from the exterior: Ex Europe, India, Middle east theses countries just provide the medicine to the sub sahara region. The lack of technology for example,the Infrared thermography (IRT) used to determined if someone has cancer is not available in Africa due to the insufficiency of money.This cause a big gap between fortunate who can travel and get treat overseas and the who can not afford the tremendous cost. The importance of coming in help to West African healthcare is to develop strong relationship, because in some way if their healthcare is weak it can affect other continent. Some individual are willing to help the Africans countries. People are creating labs for African welfare. Big organization are currently providing heath supply to help treating diseases. African is well known for all the serious diseases it contain. with today 's world, and all the diseases Africa has suffered from a century of negligence toward healthcare. Even though West Africa is slowly getting on its feet after being

This study allows for the doctors in the region of Africa to track four main untreatable diseases. They can assess the disease at different stages and figure out where to implement interventions. New studies can eventually allow for these diseases to be

There are a number of global trends that are affecting poor women. Gender, biology and poverty are linked together and are causing women to be more vulnerable to infectious diseases and reproductive tract infections. Poor women are being denied the health care and reproductive care that they desperately need. By ignoring the care that they need, we are deteriorating their lives, the lives of their families and their communities.

If the AIDS population growth continues like it is, where does this leave Africa? By the

Ghanaians desperately crave sufficient health care, that of which they will not receive until the government forms an accurate plan to stabilize Ghana’s economy and provide satisfactory solutions to environmental difficulties. The inhabitants of Ghana put their life on the line every time they wake up in the morning, and risk their well-being even more to receive medical aid. In attempt to assist their people, the Ghanaian government continues to conjure up plans that either lack substance or contribute to further struggle. As man and nature made diseases swarm throughout Ghana, there still remains an almost invisible protocol to assist those who cannot assist themselves. These people include those who face poverty or have the inability

Most of the children deaths occur due to pneumonia, preterm birth complications, intra-partum related complications, diarrhea and malaria. The issues that prevails, is the fact that universal access to basic social services is not available, and poverty.