EULALEE THOMPSON
I SEE from this copy of the Declaration of Alma-Ata (which, for some strange reason, has been sitting, for some time, in the top tray on my desk) that "health, which is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a fundamental human right".
This Alma-Ata document, signed by attendees of the International Conference on Primary Health Care, held in Alma-Ata, USSR (now defunct) in September 1978, is apparently a landmark meeting and I understand, referred to with reverence by public health professionals.
It goes on to say that "the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important worldwide social goal" and that " a main social target of governments, international organisations and the whole world community in the coming decades should be the attainment by all peoples of the world by the year 2000 of a level of health that will permit them to lead a socially and economically productive life". It's now 2005.
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
I see also that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has a constitution and it states in part that "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental human rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition" and "the extension to all peoples of the benefits of medical, psychological and related knowledge is essential to the fullest attainment of health".
The latest preoccupation is the attainment of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Technocrats, health people and world leaders gathered again in 2000 for meetings and cocktails and adopted some goals to reduce poverty and hunger by 2015. Three of the eight goals, are health related - reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under five mortality rate; reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2915, the maternal mortality rate and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread and incidence of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases).
LETTER BY YOUNG DOCTOR
Already, I overheard Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, saying in his compelling address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 17, that at the current pace, some countries and regions will miss several of the MDGs by decades.
My reflections on Alma-Ata, WHO constitution and MDGs are sparked by a young doctor's letter ('A young doctor's cry' published in The Sunday Gleaner of September 18, 2005). We published the letter anonymously and it was obviously motivated by frustration but, in clearly outlining deficiencies in the public health sector, the young doctor may have shown more courage than many of his senior colleagues. When health workers keep these things to themselves, the public is short-changed. The fact is that no matter how under-ground we journalists go to get our stories, we write from the perspective of "standing from the outside looking in"; the first-person, insider account adds punch.
The young doctor's letter also shows his/her passion for work and care for patients, many of whom are perhaps poor. The young doctor is not one who entered medicine just to get fat off of poor people's illnesses. I hope he/she is encouraged to stay.
This section stands out for me in that letter "a hernia patient was cancelled because some young punk 'decided' to get himself 'chopped up'. The simple solution would be to have two operating theatres on stream to deal with trauma and have a general surgery team assigned to handle trauma cases in a particular month and allowing the other teams to proceed with elective cases uninterrupted". Has any other health personnel thought of that? It seems simple enough.
CUBAN EYE SURGERIES
My ponderings were also stimulated by the story of 23 patients who went to Cuba under the 'Miracle Operation' programme for free eye care by 'that nation's top ophthalmologists'. These patients were understandably happy but the local health sector is the loser in that story. I am still having difficulty, for example, moving beyond the fact that Raymond Sterling, from downtown Kingston, could see nothing but 'a big white dot' for 10 years, not because medical science could do nothing for him, but because he couldn't afford the cataract-removal surgery and the public health system clearly couldn't accommodate him. Well, why should taxpaying citizens, human beings, be treated like this? Is healthcare really a basic human right?
It seems that poor patients are doomed to wait on the kindness of Cuba and Venezuela and the mercy and philanthropy of visiting health teams (like PRN International) to do even simple tests like taking their blood pressure and their blood-glucose levels. I wonder if we have local health teams doing this kind of work?
Maybe I have caught 'cynicism', you know, the malady of older journalists when we begin to feel that we've seen, written and heard it all and the same stories keep going over and over in our heads.
You may send your comments to eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com.
