Category: Healthcare Crisis

Healthcare is a set of services provided by a rustic or a corporation for the treatment of the physically and therefore the insane. It’s necessary as a result of while not this, folks are extremely in danger, particularly people who reside in economic conditions. Deficiency, diseases, and alternative health-related issues will become severely dangerous while not correct attention and support. Human medical resources or conjointly referred to as human resources for health are outlined as “all folks engaged in actions whose primary intent is to reinforce health” (World Health Organization, 2016). They’re the core of those United Nations agencies that are principally in-charged in making certain the standard of health care that’s being provided. Nurses, medical technicians, midwives, dentists, and alternative healthcare suppliers are thought-about as human medical resources. They modify the management, organization, info, and analysis, which will improve the performance of the health system. A healthcare system is well-functioning if it provides equal access to quality healthcare, notwithstanding pay dimensions, whereas protecting them from money consequences of poor health. The healthcare system here in the Philippines is taken into account as ‘dysfunctional’ as a result as it doesn’t meet the aforesaid standards of the World Health Organization. Those living in economic conditions or vulnerable folks don’t have access to health care, even with the foremost basic medical wants. The Philippines is presently facing varied health issues, but only 4.2% of the country’s total budget is being spent on health (Del Mundo, H., 2018). So, as to supply useful and economical health care to the state, having associate enough variety of human medical resources ought to be the primary issue to be thought about. However, will the country offer an economical and higher quality of health care if it’s laid low with a shortage of human medical resources?

​The healthcare system in the Philippines has undergone forceful changes in the last twenty years because the government has established varied reforms and policies to supply quick access to health edges for each Filipino. Out of the ninety million folks living in the Philippines, several don’t get access to basic care (Kenworthy, K., n.d.). The Filipino healthcare system is pertained as ‘fragmented’ by the World Health Organization as a result of there being records of unequal and unfair access to healthcare services that completely affect the poor. The government spends very little cash on the program which causes high out-of-pocket payments and additional widens the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Filipino families United Nations agency will afford to possess their check-ups or confinement at a non-public hospital, sometimes selecting these as their primary possibility. Non-public hospitals supply a much better quality of care compared to the general public hospitals that lower financial gain families sometimes attend, associated having access here may be a huge issue, particularly in rural areas. Or so 40% of the country’s hospitals are public. Of the over 700 public hospitals, around 10% are managed by the solfa syllable, whereas the remainder is managed by authority units and alternative national government agencies (Medical Observer, 2014). On the opposite hand, non-public hospitals come from government hospitals altogether classes. The quantity of personal hospitals is quadruple times of the number of public hospitals. The Philippines incorporates a high mortality and birth rate, which will be a tangle for people who reside with health conditions like tuberculosis, malaria, polygenic disease, and alternative health-related sicknesses, and most of them reside in rural or geographically isolated areas, whereby there are no access health facilities and health professionals. Such diseases paired with deficiency disease and matter deficiencies are getting progressively common, that’s why our country must offer more attention and support once it involves health care.

The Philippines is troubled to supply a better-quality healthcare service as a result of its laid-low shortage of human medical resources. In step with solfa syllable Secretary Francisco Duque III, 70% of Filipino health professionals are operating within the non-public sector, serving concerning 30% of our population. Solely 30% of medical experts are utilized by the government to handle the health wants of most Filipinos. The healthcare support in our country is focused on the urban areas like the railway system in Manila and alternative cities compared to rural areas or the provinces. The World Health Organization reports that over the last decade, an associate increasing variety of Filipino health professionals looking for higher-paying work has migrated to alternative countries. As a result, doctors, dentists, and alternative health professionals aren’t up to meeting Filipinos’ health wants. The Philippines yearly produces a sufficient variety of healthcare professionals. There are presently one hundred thirty thousand physicians and five hundred thousand registered nurses in our country. However despite these numbers, the magnitude relation of doctors and nurses to the overall population remains terribly far away from perfect, as a result, there are simply not enough job opportunities, even in government hospitals. This can be the most reason why most health professionals apply abroad or perhaps considers dynamic careers. Critically, the Philippines has become an answer to alternative countries’ shortages, as several Filipino nurses and doctors migrate to alternative countries for higher-paying jobs. On the opposite hand, healthcare professionals the United Nations agency selected to figure here within the Philippines prefer to be in an exceedingly geographical area as a result of most development efforts within the cities wherever the cash is. To add it all, our country is laid low with a shortage of human medical resources thanks to migration and maldistribution of medical experts.

​Thus, we conclude that the healthcare system within the Philippines is well-functioning if it provides equal access to quality healthcare, notwithstanding pay dimensions, whereas protective them from money consequences of poor health. Those who reside in economic conditions are extremely in danger, that’s why it’s necessary to possess health care, and therefore the human medical resources are those who are in-charged in making certain the standard of this health care. Our country is troubled to supply a better-quality healthcare service as a result of its laid-low shortage of human medical resources. Politicians in the Philippines are lavishly allocating funds, which is one of the explanations for why health care suffers. The healthcare support in our country is focused within the urban areas like the railway system in Manila and alternative cities compared to rural areas or the provinces, and as a result, there aren’t enough health professionals to handle the health wants of Filipinos. Our country is laid low with a shortage of human medical resources thanks to migration and the maldistribution of medical experts. The quantity of medical experts within the country isn’t maintaining with the country’s growth. It’s still below the World Health Organization’s prompt level of twenty-three per ten thousand population important. Member countries of the United Nations agency, however, could choose to follow or not such recommendations. Universal health care lacks around P74 billion in funds for its implementation next year, in step with the health secretary. Therefore, we propose that our government ought to extremely allot enough budget, time, and patience to support human medical resources so the health care system can improve likewise. Maldistribution of medical experts is often avoided if the government would deploy additional health professionals in rural areas. On the opposite hand, migration is often lessened if the government would build a much better supply of health professionals. In our opinion, it’s not that unhealthy if the government would prefer to pay associates enough to allow our healthcare system as a result of we tend to are paying our taxes right, that’s why every and each one in all of us ought to profit likewise.

The nursing shortage simply refers to the widespread lack of registered nurses in healthcare settings. This has been an ongoing global issue that negatively impacts the quality of healthcare patient populations receive. As a result of the nursing shortage, nurse migration has become prevalent in that it serves as somewhat of a relief to this public health crisis. Developed countries, such as the United States, actively recruit nurses from developing countries, however, this cycle of hiring migrant nurses seems to create a troubling pattern in that. From a Latin American perspective, some Latin American governments were indifferent to the reality of nurses migrating to pursue better economic, political, or social situations, while other Latin American governments modified their attitude regarding healthcare and introduced policies in an attempt to persuade nurses to stay. In contrast, Latin American nurses chose to migrate to more developed nations in pursuit of higher salaries, better career opportunities, and more favorable work conditions, as well as to escape poverty in their home countries.

This research paper will examine how nursing shortages in the 1990s influenced the migration of Latin American nurses and will include a discussion of the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that contributed to this migration. It is crucial to bring attention to this topic, considering that. Why was there a shortage of nurses in this time period? What specific policies allowed foreign nurses to migrate to the United States? Why did some Latin American nurses choose to immigrate to the United States as opposed to other Latin American countries? What opportunities did the United States offer that made these nurses decide to leave their country and start a new life? To answer these questions, it is necessary to first explore the causes of the nursing shortage, as well as the immigration policies that made nurse migration from Latin America to the United States possible.

Since its identification in the mid-1980s, the nursing shortage has become an occurrence with a life of its own, and few topics in healthcare have been studied, analyzed, and scrutinized as much as this public health crisis. During the 1990s, the nursing shortage issue in the United States grew dire as estimates had shown that growth in the profession was not sufficient to meet the projected demand. Several factors were responsible for this shortage. There was a declining interest in the nursing profession in the 1990s. In addition, the nursing workforce was aging, and older nurses opted for less patient care, choosing to become administrators, supervisors, and nursing directors. In an attempt to solve the shortage problem, hospitals and colleges across the country developed incentive programs to attract high school and college students into nursing programs. When this strategy did little to solve the problem, the United States government began to view overseas recruitment as an increasingly attractive option. Luckily, the passage of immigration policies facilitated nurse migration.

United States policymakers often made use of immigration policies as a way to control the supply of nurses in times of shortage by allowing the entry of foreign nurses into the workforce. First, the Immigration Nursing Relief Act of 1989. This act also allowed for the creation of the H-1A visa, which was the first visa specifically for nurses. Responses to the act proved to be favorable in that H-1A nurses were hired to work in unwanted locations and shifts, and were not viewed as taking jobs from American nurses. Furthermore, the program did not seem to have adverse effects on the working conditions, benefits, or wages of American nurses. Next, the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 provided another pathway for foreign nurses to be admitted to the United States. Requirements for receiving the H-1B visa include a bachelor’s degree, and the recipient must work in a position that required a bachelor’s degree. As a result of these acts, approximately 74,000 foreign nurses worked in the United States, which was about 3% of the nursing workforce in 1992. Lastly, in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented and gave foreign nurses access to a new visa category. The TN, or Trade NAFTA, visa allowed qualified professionals from Canada as well as Mexico to work in the United States for up to 3 years. Within the first year of this program, roughly 6,000 nurses relocated to the United States. Ultimately, it is because of these policies that Latin American nurse migration took place with a contributing factor being Latin American nurses’ desire to escape the adverse circumstances they resided in.

The 1990s in Latin America were characterized by poverty and income inequality. Among the ‘push’ factors that drove Latin American nurses to leave their home countries were economic instability, poor quality of life, low salaries, and limited opportunities for professional growth. Meanwhile, better living as well as working conditions, opportunities for pursuing higher education and higher salaries were ‘pull’ factors that encouraged nurses to migrate to more developed nations. The migration of nurses became a problem for Latin America in that nurse migration generally had a negative impact on developing countries, whereas more developed countries benefited. In the United States, foreign registered nurses were able to fill in empty positions caused by the nursing shortage. In Latin America, however, migrating nurses may have been replaced in terms of numbers. This caused a shortage of registered nurses, which had adverse effects on the quality of healthcare patients received. While Latin American governments were aware of this growing problem, there was a lack of public policies in support of nursing and the regulation of nurse migration. This shows a lack of commitment to and recognition of the nursing profession’s role in keeping citizens healthy. These are general statements that can be applied to Latin America as a whole, however, it is of the utmost importance to consider nurse migration in specific countries, such as Mexico, in order to discover variations in nurse migration trends.

As previously mentioned, the North American Free Trade Agreement played a role in the migration of Mexican nurses by facilitating their move to the United States. Despite this, it appears as though NAFTA resulted in the Mexican government devising incentives for nurses to remain practicing in Mexico. These incentives outweighed the benefits of migrating for improved working conditions and higher salaries. Therefore, compared to other Latin American countries, rates of Mexican nurse migration were substantially less. Even with incentives in place, however, low salaries became a migration push factor. This is because the Comisión Nacional de Salarios Mínimos (CNSM) only recognized Mexican nurses with a bachelor’s degree in nursing as ‘professionals’ in their salary categories. Moreover, prior to the creation of NAFTA, Mexican nurses were politically marginalized in policymaking, and it is for this reason that Mexican nurses did not have many opportunities to grow professionally. As a consequence, the technical authority of Mexican nurses in the workplace was undermined and nursing leadership within the Department of Health was eliminated. This became another push factor although the number of Mexican nurses who chose to migrate was fairly insignificant. The implementation of NAFTA in 1994 seemed to have caused a professionalization movement within the Mexican government.

Altogether, there are common themes evident in the migration of Latin American nurses to the United States. Nurses left their home countries for higher salaries, better employment opportunities, and improved working conditions. Above all, they came to the United States in search of a better life. The migration of nurses in the 1990s was the result of a deficiency in the number of nursing personnel as well as unfavorable working conditions in the countries workers migrated from. The United States was a country with a large deficiency, and it is because of this that the United States government. However, on a global scale, immigration policies are just a temporary solution. The United States was subject to an even bigger deficiency due to higher standards in healthcare institutions as well as an aging population. Additionally, the home countries of Latin American nurses were losing qualified workers and as a result of nurse migration, also faced the issue of a shortage of nurses in their own healthcare systems. Overall, Latin America and the United States were seemingly caught in a vicious cycle and were in desperate need of more effective solutions to the nursing shortage.

Talking about Syria can trigger a range of emotions and thoughts that are all rather negative and there is usually not a happy story to tell due to the fact that the country has faced a brutal civil war for the last decade. Then why, when looking at the World Health Organization’s report of statistics for the sustainable development goals, is this story not conveyed? Several health statistics are presented and I was prepared to be able to quite easily analyze these statistics based on what I know about the civil war and corruption in Syria. This was not the case, as most of the statistics presented in this report, compared with the rest of the world, do not seem as terrible as one might expect. With 80% of people living under the poverty line, one would think Syria would face more blatant health problems (‘World Health Statistics 2019: Monitoring Health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals’). For this reason, I will focus on uncovering the truth about Syrian health, including risk factors, how the poor access healthcare, and how much is spent on healthcare, and see how this relates to the data presented by the WHO.

First, what does the data that seems to not accurately explain the problems in Syria actually say? WHO classifies Syria in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, along with Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, and many other Middle Eastern countries. I will compare Syria’s data to this geographical area and the United States for reference. As of 2015, the maternal mortality rate was at 68 for every 100,000 live births in Syria (the US was at 14), the under 5 mortality rate was at 17 for every 1,000 births in 2017 (US was at 7), and the neonatal mortality rate was at 9 for every 1,000 births as of 2017 (the US was at 4). While yes, all of these mortality rates were higher in Syria than in the US, only maternal mortality was significantly higher (‘World Health Statistics 2019: Monitoring Health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals’). Compared to the rest of the region, Syria is roughly average, as most of the other countries’ mortality rates are similarly as low as Syria’s, with the exception of a few countries where the rates are drastically higher (Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen in particular). The average life expectancy at birth in 2016 was 63.8 (59.4 for males and 68.9 for females), while the healthy years of life was at 55.8 on average. These numbers seem particularly low for the 21st century, and begin to show part of the negative health story that is expected. In 2017, nearly two million people required help to fight neglected tropical diseases (‘World Health Statistics 2019: Monitoring Health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals’). To further the story, the amount spent on health in Syria must also be understood. The current health expenditure as a percent of the GDP was around 4% between 2000 and 2012, and then dropped to 0% the year after the civil war began (‘Health Expenditure Profile Syria’, 2016). I think that for most of the expenditure data, there has not been much if anything to collect due to the war. After seeing the data, I am still not convinced that the true health story of Syria has been produced by the WHO.

The World Health Organization released a report this year outlining the ways that they help support health in Syria, and this helps put some context to the aforementioned mortality data. The first thing this report says is that “Dangerously low vaccination rates in some areas, combined with a breakdown of water and sanitation systems and pockets of malnutrition, are making disease outbreaks in Syria more frequent and deadly” (WHO, 2019). This is likely in coordination with the NTDs that affect roughly two million people, which vaccinations would help prevent or cure. They also provide medical and health supplies (1,900 tons in 2018), and transportation to medical centers for those living in remote and rural areas. This is often a barrier for the rural poor to receiving healthcare is the lack of infrastructure and accessibility. According to this report, half of the health centers in Syria were not operational, and WHO is helping to reopen hospitals and clinics to provide more people with access to the care they need. One final goal of the World Health Organization is to provide mental healthcare to those needing it (WHO, 2019). Mental health is something that is often looked over and forgotten about all over the world it seems like, and the problems do not stop in Syria. The cost of the civil war takes a mental toll on people’s lives. It is often easy to overlook mental health because when looking at someplace like Syria, diseases and other physical ailments are much more noticeable. This report gives a much better picture for the health situation in Syria insofar that the WHO is at least trying to improve the situation, and the data shows that there is at least some positive effect to their contributions.

Lastly, I would like to touch on those who provide healthcare in Syria to explain the ways in which those in poverty might lose access or further their distance from reliable healthcare. First, going back to some of the WHO’s data, they list the number of medical professionals per 10,000 people. Using this criterion, there are 12.2 medical doctors, 14.6 nurses or midwives, 6.8 dentists, and 10.1 pharmacists. The number of dentists and pharmacists are fairly decent, if not above average, while the number of medical doctors and nurses is quite low (‘World Health Statistics 2019: Monitoring Health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals’). One report from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) might explain this. Their report cites that the WHO found that, “70% of total worldwide attacks on healthcare facilities, ambulances, services and personnel have occurred within Syria” (Rae, 2018). It is further explained that healthcare centers are purposefully attacked in Syria, but the reason is not explained. In fact, the same health centers are attacked multiple times. This leads me to believe that these are acts of terror and are meant to hold people in poverty down, showing just how corrupt the country really is. Other harsh statistics are given in this report, including the fact that between 2011 and 2017 (the first six years of the civil war), nearly 500 attacks on medical centers took place and over 800 medical providers were killed. Over 100 more were killed in the early months of 2018 alone. With this, 38% of medical workers in Syria are not officially trained (Rae, 2018). Due to the danger surrounding hospitals and other medical centers, people avoid going unless they are on the verge of death, because they believe they are more likely to die or be injured by going to receive treatment than from the ailments for which they need to be treated. This report helps explain that the health problems in Syria might not be what one would think. The problem might lie more with the fact that healthcare is being targeted and destroyed in the civil war, rather than there not being enough money or a good enough economy to take care of the people.

Overall, I was surprised with these findings about health in Syria. The story to be told here is that the war and corruption in Syria have led to some negative effects in the health sector, but as of recently, the data seems to show that things are improving, or are at least better than what the public might believe. I expected the data from the WHO reports to show much worse numbers than they did. I also did not expect purposeful attacks on healthcare centers to be such a large part of the problem. If work continues to go into helping the poor in Syria, I think that they can start to reunite as a country and build themselves up once again.

References

1. Health Expenditure Profile Syria (2016). Retrieved from: http://apps.who.int/nha/database/Country_Profile/Index/en
2. Rae, Madison (19 October 2018). Impacts of Attacks on Healthcare in Syria. Retrieved from: https://www.sams-usa.net/2018/10/19/the-impacts-of-attacks-on-healthcare-in-syria/
3. World Health Organization (2019). 8 Ways WHO Supports Health in Syria. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/how-does-who-work-amidst-conflict
4. World Health Statistics 2019: Monitoring Health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. Geneva: World Health Organization. (2019). Retrieved from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/324835/9789241565707-eng.pdf?ua=1