China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Challenges of Global Healthcare Disasters
Published in Adarsh Garg, D. P. Goyal, Global Healthcare Disasters, 2023
Deepika Sherawat, Sonia, Priyanka Shukla
One third of the world population does not have access to proper diagnostic tools, medicines, vaccines, and essential health products. These situations lead to problems like loss of life and degradation of health. High cost of drugs, lack of generic medication, commercialization of healthcare facilities are the factors because of which most of the not-so well-off people do not have access to proper medical facilities. Lack of access to essential health facilities has an adverse effect on health and lives and eventually causes drug resistance. The WHO has been working in coordination with nations to improve access to medication, fake medical products, or drugs so as to increase the capability of low-income group countries to have good quality medical facilities and be capable of sufficient diagnostic machines and products for treating specifically noncommunicable diseases.
Ultrasound Physics
Published in Debbie Peet, Emma Chung, Practical Medical Physics, 2021
On acceptance of a new system, it is good practice to obtain a set of baseline measurements; this is called acceptance testing. Baseline measures are useful for identifying degradation of the system over time. When accepting a new ultrasound system into clinical service, it may also be important to establish what the machine will be used for to verify that the QC protocol assigned for that system and frequency of QC is appropriate.
Climate emergency
Published in Alan Bleakley, Medical Education, Politics and Social Justice, 2020
Again, medicine has focused on the downstream fallout from upstream health determinants such as poverty and environmental degradation, and medical education has echoed this. Hospital care has the biggest concentration of resources such as technologies, testing and research, but primary and social care in the community constitutes most of healthcare. The coronavirus pandemic brought these issues into sharp focus where a significant number of deaths occurred in the community in care homes, and crowded institutions such as prisons and refuges have proved to be particularly vulnerable to the spread of the virus. Crowded shantytowns such as Brazil’s favelas have, predictably, also been particularly vulnerable.
Physiotherapy and ecosystem services: improving the health of our patients, the population, and the environment
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2023
Jessica Stanhope, Filip Maric, Paul Rothmore, Philip Weinstein
It has been stated that “health professionals are inadequately prepared to meet the challenges that climate change and environmental degradation pose to health systems” (Madden, McLean, Brennan, and Moore, 2020). Like other health professionals (Barna, Goodman, and Mortimer, 2012; Barna et al., 2020; Hackett et al., 2020; Madden, McLean, Brennan, and Moore, 2020; Madden, McLean, and Horton, 2018; Maxwell and Blashki, 2016; Thompson et al., 2014; Walpole et al., 2017) physiotherapists should be educated about environmental health, and sustainable health care. This education may be based on recently proposed learning outcomes for medical students: 1) “describe how the environment and human health interact at different levels” (Thompson et al., 2014); 2) “show the knowledge and skills needed to improve the environmental sustainability of health systems” (Thompson et al., 2014); and 3) “discuss how the duty of a doctor to protect and promote health is affected by the dependence of human health on the local and global environment” (Thompson et al., 2014).
Environmental physiotherapy and the case for multispecies justice in planetary health
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2022
Filip Maric, David A. Nicholls
Given physiotherapy’s current form, an otherwise environmental physiotherapy based on ecological awareness, multispecies justice, passivity and accompaniment clearly cannot be achieved overnight. We believe, therefore, that we need to think about a staged process of change that begins with the steps we know we can take now and progresses into more challenging terrain when we have some of the groundwork in place. There is no reason, for example, why we cannot immediately invest in wide-ranging critical analyses of contemporary Western biomedical ‘sickness-care,’ audit physiotherapy’s contribution to environmental degradation, including practices that support industrial capital and resource exploitation, and assess barriers to change. This work could be done on a micro scale, in clinical practices and departments, community centers and online sites, but also on a meso/macro scale at the level of national/international institutions and organizations, professional bodies, regulatory authorities and ministries.
Educating for planetary health and environmentally sustainable health care: Responding with urgency
Published in Medical Teacher, 2020
Michelle McLean, Trevor Gibbs, Judy McKimm
This Special Issue, written by health professional educators and students from across the globe, provides readers with the Why? What? and How? of educating for environmentally sustainable healthcare education. Drawing on Tun’s (2019) definition of sustainable healthcare which ‘focuses on the improvement of health and better delivery of healthcare, rather than late intervention in disease, with resulting benefits to patients and to the environment on which human health depends, thus serving to provide high-quality healthcare now without compromising the ability to meet the health needs of the future’ (p. 1168), the articles provide international and transdisciplinary perspectives on a range of topics relating to the urgent need to educate current and future health professionals to deal with the complex and ‘wicked’ problems that our planet is facing and will continue to face if, individually and collectively, we fail to take responsibility for mitigating further degradation.