Public Health

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/5406403

There is a lot of discussion around global health systems and the ripple effects from foreign recruitment. This article goes over some of it, and if you want more there are links in the article for the rest of "White Coat Black Art: Inside the recruitment pipeline bringing nurses from the Philippines to Canada"

This quote at the end of the page got me thinking about it again:

The reporting of this story was made possible by the R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship. Jim Travers, who died in 2011, believed it was crucial for Canadian reporters to "bear witness" because in our interconnected world, foreign news is local news.

This is especially true for healthcare, and any solution to our health system issues will need to address not only the immediate staffing needs here (in Canada) but also the long-term sustainability of healthcare systems in other countries. Even if you're primarily concerned with Canada's healthcare, neglecting the broader global context can still jeopardize the long-term sustainability of our own system.

cross-posted from: https://baraza.africa/post/451001

Neglected tropical diseases, such as visceral leishmaniasis, primarily affect people in the world’s poorest regions. Unfortunately, commercially driven medical research tends to overlook these populations because they are believed to lack the financial means to constitute a lucrative market for the traditional pharmaceutical industry. Drug development today is primarily skewed to areas with the greatest commercial return rather than those with the greatest public health needs.

But the alternative model that my organization, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), and our partners have pioneered since 2003 focuses on areas of the greatest need rather than the greatest profit. This means that we prioritize the development of treatments for diseases that have a high impact on public health, even if they are not directly profitable for the companies that develop them.