For Ghanaian students enjoying Empower Playgrounds, Inc.’s (EPI) merry-go-rounds, scrapes, cuts and bruises are shrugged off with a laugh. However, treating medical emergencies like malaria infection, especially in rural areas, is no laughing matter.
EPI, A nonprofit organization based in Ghana, operates in remote locations where electricity is almost nonexistent, and medical centers are extremely scarce. By building playgrounds that generate electricity, EPI prioritizes children’s entertainment as much as their health and education.
The Borgen Project had the opportunity to speak with Ben Markham, the founder of EPI, about healthcare in Ghana. According to Markham, when a student falls extremely ill at school, a teacher will accompany the student to the nearest trained nurse, if one exists. The student and teacher will often travel by foot out of town, and if the medical emergency is severe, the teacher will leave the student at the facility and walk back to the community to inform the child’s parents.
Fortunately, healthcare in Ghana is transitioning to include more technology and communication channels. With substantial telehealth investment injected into rural Ghanaian towns, these communities stand a chance to receive basic health supplies and on-demand medical attention through telehealth methods.
Telemedicine is More Accessible Than In-Person Visits
In response to COVID-19, Ghana’s Ministry of Health proposed to open 94 new hospitals across the country between 2020 to 2021. In a statement addressed to the nation, Ghanaian president Akufo-Addo said that the pandemic exposed “the deficiencies of the healthcare system,” casting blame towards under-investment. So how will the addition of more hospitals benefit areas outside of the country’s municipalities?
Lack of basic healthcare in Ghana stands as a serious issue in the non-urban areas of the country. Nearly half (49 percent) of Ghanaians live in rural communities, and many communities lack a central facility and have a shortage of medical professionals. The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has partnered with various entities to solve this problem on the ground.
For example, Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) trains volunteers to provide health services in rural communities. Additionally, GHS has partnered with Novatoris Foundation to develop teleconsultant centers. These centers allow community nurses, who usually lack equipment and staff, to speak with urban nurses over the phone when medical urgencies arise, such as childbirth.
Within the last ten years, healthcare in Ghana has seen emerging interest and attention directed toward telehealth. When the first teleconsultant centers opened in 2011, 60 percent of calls were maternity-related, mainly due to the fact that the majority of maternal mortality occurred in rural areas. In effect, telemedicine became an avenue of investment to bridge spatial and temporal gaps for remote Ghanaians.
Vodafone Proves to be a Major Player in Ghanaian Health
Among technologies and assets helping Ghanaians stay informed about their health, the cellular company Vodafone stands out.
The company has partnered with Ghana’s healthcare industry through its philanthropic arm, Vodafone Ghana Foundation. In 2019, the foundation cleared the medical debts of 180 Ghanaian patients who had been discharged yet detained due to outstanding hospital bills. Upon settlement, all 180 former patients were released from detention. In 2018, the company partnered with the central government to monitor epidemics, specifically targeting the Ebola virus, by aggregating heat maps from customers’ GPS movements. They are doing the same with coronavirus today.
In the spring of 2020, as the novel coronavirus moved into Ghana, Vodafone stepped in to dispel misinformation. The Vodafone Healthline Medical Centers, call centers equipped with medical experts, expanded services to include representatives who communicate in a variety of local languages including Ga, Twi, Fante, Ewe and Hausa.
Managing Expectations
Markham and his staffers know of telemedicine services, but they remain skeptical. Cellular signal breaks up where cell towers are not present, and towers can often be 32 kilometers outside of a remote community. In addition, many Ghanaians turn their cell phones off to save battery, since many of them are still powered with AA batteries rather than chargers. Cell phone credits are also considered precious, leading to many people turning their devices off to save unused credits. All these factors could inhibit the ability of telemedicine to improve healthcare in Ghana.
However, Markham feels optimistic about the role that technology can play in providing health services to rural-based Ghanaians. He believes grassroots efforts, such as the Community-Based Health Planning and Services, should continue to expand at the same rate as telehealth and tech-based health initiatives.
– Victoria Colbert
Photo: Empower Playgrounds, Inc.
Cyclone Harold’s Effect on Homelessness in Vanuatu
Cyclone Harold tore through Vanuatu in early April 2020 and brought torrential rain, flash flooding and destructive wind up to 145 miles per hour. The storm devastated Espiritu Santo and Pentecost Island, bringing about significant impacts to the rest of the country’s northern and central islands. The cyclone wiped out trees and crops, flooded cities and towns, knocked out power, disrupted communications and destroyed countless homes and businesses. World Vision Vanuatu stated that 160,000 people, which is more than half of the country’s population, became homeless. In some villages, including one on Pentecost Islands, the cyclone destroyed all the homes.
General Relief Efforts
Addressing homelessness in Vanuatu after Cyclone Harold has been challenging due to COVID-19. While the country is one of the few places in the world without any cases, a single outbreak could put the island’s population and healthcare system in jeopardy. Therefore, the country halted international travel, forbade foreign relief workers from on-the-ground efforts and required the decontamination of all aid equipment. As a result, many communities did not see immediate relief.
The Santo Sunset Environment Network and Edenhope Foundation established a coconut weaving program to help rebuild after Cyclone Harold. The program employs people from the island of Tanna in the southern part of Vanuatu. The Tanna weavers held workshops with residents of the affected communities and taught them how to build with coconut fronds, rope and bamboo. Although islanders typically use Natangura palms to construct homes, Harold destroyed most of them, so residents had to adapt. While builders constructed most of the new buildings for communal purposes, they are looking to build private homes and cyclone-resistant buildings as well.
Down Under Rally, an Australian boating tour agency, started Project Nakamal, another local effort to address homelessness in Vanuatu. Down Under Rally also operates in New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Its priority is to rebuild the Nakamal structure, a building that locals use for ceremonial and community purposes. These buildings are at the heart of each community and serve as an important facet of Vanuatu society. The boating tour agency teamed up with Port of Call Yacht Services to provide materials for rebuilding. The organization has now exceeded its original fundraising goal of $10,000 Australian dollars, about $6,948 in USD.
Larger organizations like World Vision Vanuatu set a goal to reach 3,000 households in Sanma Province, which includes the islands of Espiritu Santo and Malo. These organizations collaborated with World Vision’s Asia Pacific regional office and Vanuatu Women’s Centre to raise money for shelter, water purification and hygiene kits to support people with disabilities.
Through the help of U.N. Women, the Vanuatu Women’s Centre was able to make mobile counseling visits to various areas that the storm affected and help homeless women as well as their families. The organization reports that many women were concerned about their children and avoiding domestic violence. While various women called in need of food, water and shelter, others reached out to alleviate violence and sexual abuse.
Future of Relief
Despite the fact that Vanuatu’s carbon footprint is small, it is at the forefront of dealing with challenging weather. According to a study from Griffith University, the University of Queensland and the University of the Sunshine Coast, stronger and more frequent tropical cyclones threaten the island chain due. Rising sea levels also threaten the country, which would only exacerbate homelessness in Vanuatu. The study found that community-centered initiatives were most successful in addressing these issues. These local programs were scientific but complemented traditional beliefs.
It is important to expand and further implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The document received signatures at the U.N. General Assembly in 2015 and set specific goals for disaster mitigation through 2030. The agreement seeks to reduce global disaster mortality, the number of people who disasters affect, economic losses and infrastructure damage. It seeks to increase warning system availability, international cooperation to developing countries and the number of countries that have both national and local mitigation strategies.
– Bryan Boggiano
Photo: Flickr
Improving Access to Healthcare in Sudan
Located in northeastern Africa, Sudan has long been a diverse region of interaction between continental Africa and the Mediterranean. The country is home to hundreds of sub-Saharan African ethnic groups, and political and security challenges in recent decades have impacted it. In addition to displacement, the scattered population has recently suffered several outbreaks of cholera, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever (RVF), chikungunya and malaria.
Healthcare in Sudan faces both unique geographical and financial barriers to access. Improvements in health indicators are difficult to measure since they vary by region. Additionally, efforts to improve healthcare access have met with challenges. These include ineffective implementation of policies and poor coordination between the health and education sectors.
Financial Barriers
Postcolonial Sudan had free access to healthcare until the 1990s when the government gradually withdrew healthcare service provision. To retain healthcare access, Sudanese people often relied on borrowing money from relatives, working more and reducing expenditure on other vital living expenses. Many resorted to buying partial recommended treatments, resulting in further health complications.
Despite reducing support for healthcare, the Sudanese government also invested in higher medical education around the same time. It opened 30 new medical schools and made Sudan the country with the highest number of medical schools in Africa. This investment was an important step in the sustainable progress of healthcare in Sudan. It ensured a steady increase of healthcare professionals for the growing population of 42 million. Consequently, the physician-to-patient ratio improved from 0.1 per 1,000 people in 1996 to 0.41 per 1,000 people in 2015.
In 1997, in an effort to compensate for reduced government spending on health, the Ministry of Health introduced social health insurance (SHI). By 2017, SHI covered most of the population in Khartoum state and a few others. Despite internal efforts, healthcare in Sudan receives little international support. Compared with 50% of healthcare expenditure in Rwanda, only 5.4% of Sudan’s healthcare expenditure comes from external aid. The Sudanese government spends a comparable amount on healthcare to other sub-Saharan countries. However, the cost of healthcare for Sudanese citizens remains high, and many are uninsured.
Current Challenges
Sudan is struggling to retain healthcare workers, many of whom leave the country for better living and working conditions. To reduce physician migration, the Sudanese government has offered various incentives to specialists, such as generous salaries, leading positions, housing, transport and free education for offspring. However, the government cannot afford to sustain these efforts in the long-term or extend these benefits to all physicians.
Michelle Bachelet, a U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, argued that sanctions that the U.S. imposed have barred Sudan from receiving international funding for healthcare and COVID-19 relief. Sudan is on the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which makes it ineligible to access any of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank’s $50 billion Trust Fund. This fund is currently assisting vulnerable countries to fight COVID-19. Sudan’s health minister Akram Ali Altom has also confirmed that the healthcare system is in urgent need of funding.
Geographical Barriers
As in many African countries, the main challenges to healthcare in Sudan are in rural areas. There, conflict, lack of transport and uneven distribution of resources reduce the availability of healthcare workers. An estimated 70% of the total healthcare providers are in the capital city Khartoum, serving just 20% of the population.
One way that some Sudanese states have addressed the problem has been through the use of telemedicine. Telemedicine has the potential to break down geographical barriers and increase access to high quality, specialist care to patients. A two-year pilot program in Gezira introduced electronic health records into the area for the first time. More than 165,000 new patients were able to register for consultations.
Sudan has many challenges to overcome before telemedicine can become a national success. Consultants located in the Khartoum center were not responsive. Additionally, issues involving software licensing and equipment maintenance have hindered smooth operations. As Salah Mandil, who led the first telemedicine project in Khartoum, noted, poor collaboration between scattered telemedicine projects has hindered efficiency and growth. For instance, projects such as the Surveillance project (FMOH) and the eHealth project have begun independently in various areas. However, they do not communicate or coordinate efforts.
Despite challenges to stability and safety, Sudan has made steps toward improving healthcare access in the past decade. To ensure equal and sustainable healthcare in Sudan, it must address the remaining challenges through better cooperation, management and funding from the government and international aid organizations.
– Beti Sharew
Photo: Flickr
Diabetes in South Africa: 5 Essential Facts
5 Facts About Diabetes in South Africa
– Danielle Kuzel
Photo: Flickr
Reducing Hunger in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has experienced notable progress in several developmental areas. The country has achieved improvements to primary education, a reduction in childbirth rate and decreasing poverty levels. However, food insecurity remains a consistent problem. Hunger in Sri Lanka is a major obstacle to the nation’s socio-economic development. According to the 2019 Global Hunger Index, Sri Lanka scores 17.1, ranking 66 among 117 qualifying countries.
The Numbers
According to a UN report, more than 800 million people worldwide were estimated to be chronically undernourished as of 2017. Over 90 million children under five are underweight. Sri Lanka ranked poorly on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and global food security index, two major indicators of food security in any country. A Food and Agriculture Organization report from 2014 to 2016 found an average calorie deficit in Sri Lanka of 192 kcal per capita per day. In South Asia, only Afghanistan (36.6%) and Pakistan (30.5%) had higher rates of food inadequacy.
A study by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) revealed that more than 13% of minors in Sri Lanka were malnourished between the period of 2006-2010. The survey found that 23% of children between six and 59 months of age were stunted, 18% wasted and 29% underweight.
AHRC also found that remote and underdeveloped areas suffer more from hunger than larger cities. Although Sri Lanka has moderate percentages of food accessibility (54.5%), availability (52.8%), quality and safety (49.5 %), it is still struggling to achieve the United Nation’s goal for zero hunger by 2030.
Causes of Persistent Hunger
A food-insecure family lacks access to an optimum quantity of affordable and nutritious food. The immediate and obvious impact of food insecurity can be observed in physical health. Children struggle to concentrate in school and adults find it hard to perform well in their job. The household hunger scale (HHS) measures food insecurity in Sri Lanka on the basis of three factors: lacking access to food, sleeping hungry because of not having enough to eat and household members spending the whole day and night without eating anything.
There are several drivers behind hunger in Sri Lanka. Stagnant growth in crops in recent years has created a shortage of essential food. As the population continues to grow, this problem worsens. Furthermore, 35% of crops end up being wasted, never reaching hungry people. Rising food prices are also a concern in Sri Lanka. Changes in import duties and non-tariff barriers have caused increases in food prices as well.
Unemployment is also a major factor behind food insecurity and hunger in Sri Lanka. Many families have one or more members unemployed. One report shows that around 30% of the households depend on casual wage labor for their livelihood and food security. Around 90% percent of households in the city of Jaffna and 75% in the Vavuniya District were unemployed around 2012.
Initiatives to Address Hunger
Agriculture is one of the key ways to combat hunger and malnutrition. Different policies are intended to help fulfill Sri Lanka’s food requirement, including the National Climate Change Policy and the National Adaptation Plan for Climate Change Impact. A climate-smart agriculture system is working on increasing climate-resilient crops, rainwater harvesting, crop diversification and use of technology.
Under the National Nutrition Policy, every Sri Lankan citizen has the right to access adequate and appropriate food — irrespective of geographical location or socio-economic status. In addition to these efforts, global agencies like the World Food Program are working to combat hunger in Sri Lanka. UNICEF is also working to improve child and maternal nutrition.
Additional Ways to Combat Hunger
Socially vulnerable groups — like the elderly or female-headed families — are more prone to food insecurity. Sri Lanka’s government and other organizations should supply food vouchers to these vulnerable groups.
Because livestock production in Sri Lanka offers vast opportunity, the government should also encourage training and veterinary services to promote livestock production. In addition to this, privatizing the fish industry could help generate employment.
Moving forward, the government and other humanitarian organizations need to make reducing hunger in Sri Lanka a priority. Policies like the ones listed above are crucial for reaching the U.N.’s goal of zero hunger.
– Anuja Kumari
Photo: Flickr
Combating Tuberculosis in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa, has been recovering from a civil war since 2002. While the country is still healing from the war, as well as combating disease, Sierra Leone’s life expectancy sits at about 52 years. This is 20 to 30 years younger than many wealthier nations. The prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) and other health crises threaten the nation’s strained healthcare system. In 2016, Sierra Leone struggled with the Ebola outbreak. Now in 2020, they fight TB while grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tuberculosis in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is among the 30 countries most impacted by TB, with 14,114 cases reported as of 2016 and many more potentially uncounted. There are around 170 centers in Sierra Leone that offer treatment for TB.
Bacteria cause TB, which most often affects the lungs. Occasionally, TB can also affect joints, bones and the central nervous system. The disease spreads through the air. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that, “When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air.” People can also get TB by drinking unpasteurized milk contaminated by bovine TB.
Combating Tuberculosis
The National TB Programme at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation launched TB-fighting programs in Sierra Leone, backed by WHO, USAID and the CDC. As of 2018, 13,396 people successfully underwent preventative therapy for TB.
In 2015, following the Ebola epidemic, the CDC established an in-country center that partnered with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. Through this partnership, they improved treatment and diagnosis services for HIV and TB, as well as making them more accessible to the population. This partnership has been the source of several high-tech facilities intended for testing for HIV/TB, drug-resistant TB and HIV/TB coinfection.
Other Obstacles
Poverty, war and epidemics like the 2015 Ebola outbreak — all things Sierra Leone still endures — can further ravage already fragile health programs in impoverished countries.
HIV, another disease Sierra Leone fights, is not only another pressure for a struggling healthcare system but a fast track for people to develop active TB. People with HIV are at a greater risk for contracting TB since HIV attacks an individual’s immune system. This is especially true if the patient is not being treated for HIV via antiretroviral therapy, which suppresses the virus. Children living with both HIV and TB face the added obstacle of a difficult diagnosis process because it is harder to identify the bacteria in child samples. TB is also the leading cause of death in people who are living with HIV.
Another strain on the system comes from the poverty, which Sierra Leone is fighting to end. National economic struggles and the low wages of healthcare staff contribute to the rising prices for TB treatment, even for those within the national subsidized program.
Efforts of CISMAT-SL
Accessibility of treatment and testing are major obstacles for those in Sierra Leone suffering from TB. As of 2009, only 5% of people living with HIV tested for TB, with less than 1% receiving Isoniazid preventive therapy.
The Civil Movement Against Tuberculosis in Sierra Leone (CISMAT-SL) is a collection of civil society organizations, both community and faith-based, to help those fighting TB. CISMAT-SL advocates for TB prevention, early diagnosis and treatment and the classification of TB as a human rights issue. The movement is working to shift the priority of healthcare onto the health of the population, rather than the economics of it. CISMAT-SL strongly advocates for the early start of antiretroviral therapy, Isoniazid preventive therapy (sterilization of lesions to prevent active TB from developing), TB case finding and infection control. The movement work to make these efforts more widespread.
Testing and treatment for TB exist, developing further with the rise of drug-resistant TB and TB/HIV coinfection. In impoverished countries, already existing treatments and testing are harder to access due to fragile infrastructures and less supported healthcare systems. In Sierra Leone, and other impoverished nations dealing with TB, the first step to improving the health and welfare of the population starts with making testing and treatment measures accessible. This is the battle CISMAT-SL and other humanitarian organizations are waging to help stave off tuberculosis in Sierra Leone.
– Catherine Lin
Photo: Flickr
Women’s SHGs Combating COVID-19 in India
Women’s self-help groups have empowered women across rural villages in India to become self-reliant by building their skills and providing access to financial assistance, enabling them to increase their income. However, due to the COVID-19 crisis, there is a predicament of bleak income opportunities due to a lack of transport and marketing facilities to sell their produce and non-availability of credit. It has forced millions of migrants to move back to their villages from big cities due to the lack of income opportunities. With the movement of people to rural areas, there is a need to ensure proper health care, spread awareness about COVID-19 and maintain a supply of essential commodities for the people. Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in rural areas are combating COVID-19 in India.
SHGs are informal groups of people that come together to address problems by mutually supporting and helping each other. They have been able to uplift and empower individuals by facilitating health care, education, rehabilitation, credit and campaigning. In India, there are 67 million women members of six million SHGs. The SHGs fall under the National Rural Livelihood Mission, a policy that the World Bank has aided. Here are five ways women’s self-help groups are combating COVID-19 in India.
5 Ways Women’s Self-Help Groups Are Combating COVID-19 in India
Women’s self-help groups have taken up various responsibilities such as spreading awareness about COVID-19, preparing sanitizers and stitching facemasks, running community kitchens as well as delivering essential food supplies. At the time of the COVID-19 crisis, women in the rural areas of India have participated meaningfully to ameliorate the predicament.
– Anandita Bardia
Photo: Flickr
The Importance of Microfinance in Bolivia
With microlending and financial services that empower business owners and promote development becoming more readily available, Bolivia is considered to be a microfinance success story. Microfinance allows vulnerable populations to access capital and financial services that would ordinarily be out of reach. Most commercial banks, unwilling to work with very low-income markets, alienate those living in extreme poverty. As a result, the World Bank reports that 73% of people living below the global poverty line are unbanked. However, in many developing countries, microlending systems allow entrepreneurs to take out small business loans in safer manner. Because the economy relies on a great deal of informal labor, access to microfinance in Bolivia has been crucial for its economic improvement. Today, almost 20 government-regulated microfinance providers service the country’s small business owners and entrepreneurs, serving 12.2% of the population and 16.4% of the labor force.
How do Microloans Work?
Since the 1980s, microloans have been used to empower borrowers in developing companies and give them the needed infrastructure to earn a sustainable income. They range from about $100 to $25,000, accrue interest like conventional loans and are capped at fair interest rates that do not put borrowers at risk of sinking deeper into debt, unlike the same services of many commercial lenders and private ‘loan sharks’. According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people currently benefit from microfinance initiatives.
Banco Sol and Microfinance in Bolivia
With the lowest GDP per capita and the second-lowest Human Development Index in South America, Bolivia faces clear economic challenges. However, pioneering infrastructure has allowed many economically disadvantaged Bolivians to borrow the capital necessary to advance their own businesses. In fact, Bolivia boasts one of the world’s lowest microfinance interest rates, at 13.5%.
Banco Sol is the largest microfinance company in Bolivia, and the world’s first commercial bank entirely dedicated to providing microfinance services; it also has one of the lowest delinquency rates in the world, marking the success of both the company and borrowers. Kurt Koenigsfest, Banco Sol’s CEO, markets the bank’s services as tools of social mobility and poverty management, saying “this is one way that has been proven to provide jobs and investment in the hands of those who, before its creation, had no access to financial services.”
Human Benefits
Bolivia is home to the world’s largest informal economy, with roughly two-thirds of Bolivians employed by the informal sector. Many of these business owners sell goods like clothing, food and cosmetics in simple market stalls or shops. With an economy structured in this way, Bolivia has unsurprisingly benefited from financial infrastructure that services self-employed entrepreneurs who need capital to initiate growth in their business. The country’s physical remoteness and low population density, however, make it especially difficult for the rural poor to access both the national market and necessary financial resources. Banco Sol utilizes mobile branches, or trucks with banking facilities, to overcome this obstacle, so that even the most rural villages can gain access to banking.
A Path Forward
Exclusion from financial services can be a hurdle for those experiencing extreme poverty. Lenders like Banco Sol have given many small business owners the means to grow their capital while still maintaining ethical lending practices. Following the introduction of microfinance in Bolivia, the country has welcomed a new class of empowered, rising entrepreneurs that have secured higher positions in the nation’s marketplace.
– Stefanie Grodman
Photo: Unsplash
Telemedicine Plays a Bigger Role in Healthcare in Ghana
EPI, A nonprofit organization based in Ghana, operates in remote locations where electricity is almost nonexistent, and medical centers are extremely scarce. By building playgrounds that generate electricity, EPI prioritizes children’s entertainment as much as their health and education.
The Borgen Project had the opportunity to speak with Ben Markham, the founder of EPI, about healthcare in Ghana. According to Markham, when a student falls extremely ill at school, a teacher will accompany the student to the nearest trained nurse, if one exists. The student and teacher will often travel by foot out of town, and if the medical emergency is severe, the teacher will leave the student at the facility and walk back to the community to inform the child’s parents.
Fortunately, healthcare in Ghana is transitioning to include more technology and communication channels. With substantial telehealth investment injected into rural Ghanaian towns, these communities stand a chance to receive basic health supplies and on-demand medical attention through telehealth methods.
Telemedicine is More Accessible Than In-Person Visits
In response to COVID-19, Ghana’s Ministry of Health proposed to open 94 new hospitals across the country between 2020 to 2021. In a statement addressed to the nation, Ghanaian president Akufo-Addo said that the pandemic exposed “the deficiencies of the healthcare system,” casting blame towards under-investment. So how will the addition of more hospitals benefit areas outside of the country’s municipalities?
Lack of basic healthcare in Ghana stands as a serious issue in the non-urban areas of the country. Nearly half (49 percent) of Ghanaians live in rural communities, and many communities lack a central facility and have a shortage of medical professionals. The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has partnered with various entities to solve this problem on the ground.
For example, Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) trains volunteers to provide health services in rural communities. Additionally, GHS has partnered with Novatoris Foundation to develop teleconsultant centers. These centers allow community nurses, who usually lack equipment and staff, to speak with urban nurses over the phone when medical urgencies arise, such as childbirth.
Within the last ten years, healthcare in Ghana has seen emerging interest and attention directed toward telehealth. When the first teleconsultant centers opened in 2011, 60 percent of calls were maternity-related, mainly due to the fact that the majority of maternal mortality occurred in rural areas. In effect, telemedicine became an avenue of investment to bridge spatial and temporal gaps for remote Ghanaians.
Vodafone Proves to be a Major Player in Ghanaian Health
Among technologies and assets helping Ghanaians stay informed about their health, the cellular company Vodafone stands out.
The company has partnered with Ghana’s healthcare industry through its philanthropic arm, Vodafone Ghana Foundation. In 2019, the foundation cleared the medical debts of 180 Ghanaian patients who had been discharged yet detained due to outstanding hospital bills. Upon settlement, all 180 former patients were released from detention. In 2018, the company partnered with the central government to monitor epidemics, specifically targeting the Ebola virus, by aggregating heat maps from customers’ GPS movements. They are doing the same with coronavirus today.
In the spring of 2020, as the novel coronavirus moved into Ghana, Vodafone stepped in to dispel misinformation. The Vodafone Healthline Medical Centers, call centers equipped with medical experts, expanded services to include representatives who communicate in a variety of local languages including Ga, Twi, Fante, Ewe and Hausa.
Managing Expectations
Markham and his staffers know of telemedicine services, but they remain skeptical. Cellular signal breaks up where cell towers are not present, and towers can often be 32 kilometers outside of a remote community. In addition, many Ghanaians turn their cell phones off to save battery, since many of them are still powered with AA batteries rather than chargers. Cell phone credits are also considered precious, leading to many people turning their devices off to save unused credits. All these factors could inhibit the ability of telemedicine to improve healthcare in Ghana.
However, Markham feels optimistic about the role that technology can play in providing health services to rural-based Ghanaians. He believes grassroots efforts, such as the Community-Based Health Planning and Services, should continue to expand at the same rate as telehealth and tech-based health initiatives.
– Victoria Colbert
Photo: Empower Playgrounds, Inc.
Fighting Corruption Worldwide
What is Corruption?
Before addressing the logistics of foreign poverty, it is necessary to define what that word “corruption” means in this context. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) will be the standard definition of what corruption is, as it has been a common definition since 1995. The CPI ranks countries in terms of how much they embody “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.”
Where to Find It
Even with the guidelines provided by the CPI, there is still room for interpretation, and as such there are many different survey results from individual sources (two, for example, come from the World Population Report and U.S. News and World Report). However, that is not to say there are not general trends throughout each of the results. Several lists that were used as sources cited at least half of the top 10 most corrupt countries as coming from South America, Africa or the Middle East.
The ways in which corruption has reared its head have mostly been economical. For instance, bribery is so prevalent in Afghanistan that 38% of the population sees it as normal. Somalia has a similar perception and prevalence of corruption. Ever since the Siad Barre regime was overthrown in 1991, there has been no strong government in control of the entire country. Instead, pirates, militias and clans fight over individual territories, preventing any chance of united progress without foreign intervention.
How Does This Relate to Poverty?
Anyone can understand in a broad sense how corruption is related to poverty, since one would assume that any country riddled with poverty would have to be the result of a misuse of power. For any changes to occur, however, people need to understand clearly what exactly is going on. In 2010, a sample of 97 developing countries was examined by the University of Putra Malaysia in a study that attempted to find the casual relationship between corruption and poverty.
In short, the study’s original data and other literature it cited concluded that “countries with high income inequality have high levels of corruption… After countries attain a specific level of income equality, corruption exponentially decreases.” This is no surprise considering how authorities in Sudan, Afghanistan and other nations have bribed and hoarded billions of dollars that should have helped citizens out of poverty.
Solutions
The study found three main ways to create a culture change in the corruption of developing nations.
These ideas may seem like common sense, but in a country that is not taking action, they need to be restated, just as they have been for America’s own domestic issues. All it takes to begin the fight against global corruption is simple civil engagement, such as an email to a senator.
– Bryce Thompson
Photo: Flickr
5 Facts about Healthcare in Algeria
Algeria is located on the Northern coast of Africa and is home to 42.2 million people. The nation adopted a universal single-payer healthcare system in 1984, which allows anyone to access healthcare at no cost to themselves. The nation’s economy is largely reliant on oil prices and sales, but these have proven to be volatile in the past several decades. Due to this economic instability, 23% of the population lives below the poverty line, even though the nation has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. What is even more startling is the 29% youth unemployment rate. Given that such a large segment of the population falls below the poverty line and cannot find work, many Algerians are reliant on their publicly funded healthcare system to provide for them in times of need. Here are five facts about healthcare in Algeria in light of the country’s economic hardship.
5 Facts About Healthcare in Algeria
Healthcare in Algeria has struggled for years, and the COVID-19 pandemic exposed many of its weaknesses. However, the pandemic has also allowed communities to respond to such weaknesses in full force. While Algerians are working to protect one another through e-commerce and social distancing, the international community is banding together to support the nation as well.
– Allison Moss
Photo: Flickr