Global Issues of Medicine and its Possible Responses

Medical care remains an important component of any society impacting the wellbeing and life span of people. Even so, several underlying challenges plague the provision of effective health care around the globe despite the rapid developments in technology and medicine. 

Such challenges include inadequate qualification of practicing physicians, inadequate apparatus and medicines, high cost of treatment, long queues, and a shortage of specialized health establishments for rare and complex diseases.

In many of the Countries where the treatment costs are excessively high, the utilization of medical tourism can be one of the strategies for addressing the problem. Doctor.Global can act in this direction to some extent as it assists patients with selecting countries where the medical treatment will be cheaper but of the same high quality.

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Insufficient Qualification of Doctors

Problem Overview

One of the fitted calamities bedeviling the healthcare systems around the globe is the lesser qualification of the medical fighters. In the majority of the areas particularly in the lower and middle income earners countries, doctors are often inadequately trained and cannot understand and manage complicated medical cases. This deficiency of people’s knowledge and skill imbalances could also bring about wrong diagnosis, wrong medication, and death where death was expected to be avoided.

Discussion

It is necessary to understand the reasons for the phenomenon in question. There are parts of a medical education system that appear to be outdated and fail to deliver broad-based training that meets the requirements of contemporary medical practice in addition to. There is also, in most cases, a problem of insufficient professional development opportunities for practicing doctors, making it hard for them to keep abreast with what’s new in medicine.

Suggestions

It should be noted that to prevent such a problem from happening again, the existing system of medical education in such regions should be effectively restructured. This can be done by:

Working with External Medical Entities: Forming collaborations with other medical institutes and or hospitals all over the globe.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD): Having CPD provisions to ‘refresh’ the skills of medical doctors and nurses periodically as a law within a country.

Such Medium Of Interaction Is Far Adopted Due to Information Overload: Educative websites that offer courses and training sessions that are literacy-based are blended with modern technology and can be utilized especially where people are far from the training centers.

Lack of Modern Equipment and Drugs for Treatment

Problem Overview

Access to modern medical equipment and essential drugs is another significant challenge that is faced by most healthcare systems worldwide. A lot of hospitals and clinics, especially in underdeveloped areas, are functioning with obsolete initiatives or inadequate medical facilities. This shortage makes the care delivered to the patients poor, as well as restricting the types of tests and treatments that can be administered.

Discussion

Modern industrial equipment and medications are nearly absent in most primary healthcare facilities because of inadequate finances, erosion of the systems, or suboptimal gemba management. In such cases, there may be personnel factors, in that trained staff may be limited to operating and looking after the medical equipment and machinery.

Suggestions

Investment in Healthcare Infrastructure: There should be a concerted effort by both government and international organizations to provide financing for the improvement of the healthcare infrastructure including buying modern medical equipment and medicines.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): The private sector should be encouraged to partake in the provision of healthcare services to increase funding for such projects and to control resource spending. Technologies and expertise can also be transferred through PPPs.

Efficient Supply Chain Management: The establishment of effective supply systems capable of delivering the required medical input products at the correct time and a reasonable cost is essential. This consists of installing proper stock control systems and good procurement procedures.

Training for Equipment Use: Training programs for healthcare workers on the use of advanced medical equipment and its maintenance should be implemented to enhance the advantages of the available technologies.

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Self-Health Care in the Context of Most Economically Developed Countries

Problem Overview

A few factors can be identified that have a barrier effect for many patients including those in middle and high-income countries for the treatment of any disease – the high cost of seeking medical help. Most of these costly treatments prove to be a financial burden or disaster for patients and their families and in some situations patients may even go without required treatment just because it’s too expensive.

Discussion

Several reasons aid in the high costs of medical care. Among these are the high prices of medicines, the cost of medical devices, operational overheads, and the profit-making disposition of some healthcare systems. Again, the absence or the level of health insurance a patient has placed more strain on the patient’s finances.

Suggestions

To tackle the problem of high prices of an effective course of method treatment, the following suggestions may be taken into consideration: 

Universal Health Coverage (UHC): UHC ensures that all people can avail of necessary healthcare services without incurring any financial difficulty. This will entail coverage of essential treatment services, drugs, as well as preventive medications.

Price Regulation of Drugs and Treatments: There is potential for the states to negotiate and control the prices of drugs and medical services making them more accessible to the majority of the people.

Promotion of Generic Drugs: Generally, the usage of generic drugs that often are cheaper than the brand ones is very helpful in minimizing the cost of treatment.

Global Concerns in the Realm of Medical Care and Their Possible Ways Out

Basic principles of health are indisputable in the sense that they are part and parcel of equal rights for every individual. However, some people continue to face different challenges when accessing certain medical services. While it is true that some countries have made a lot of advances in their health care systems, some are barely able to provide very basic medical health care. 

Common problems in many regions are low qualifications of health personnel, absence of adequate instruments and pharmacological agents, skyrocketing prices for the most common treatments, long queues for any required services, and no centers for the treatment of rare or complex diseases.

Surgeries without the Support of Modern Technology

In many developing regions, particularly low-income countries, the absence of modern medical equipment and latest medicines is a serious issue. New technology or machinery is expensive and hospitals cannot invest in purchasing new technology like MRI machines or robotic surgery instruments hence diagnosis and treatment are performed using obsolete means. Similarly, without the much-needed medicines, patients suffering from ailments that may be cured with the available medicines, are still doomed.

Even in developed economies, financial restraints may limit the availability of the latest technological advances to the medical field creating a disadvantage in healthcare services. For instance, public healthcare institutions may not be able to access high-level medical technology at par with specialized private hospitals and facilities.

Proposed Solutions

Public-Private Partnerships: In public health, the government can partner with private healthcare companies and international organizations to make sure that basic healthcare infrastructure like essential drugs, and medical equipment, are available and shared appropriately.

Subsidies for Medical Technology: Due to budget cuts and increasing costs of new medical technology, governments should increase the up-front purchase costs of new medical technology to public hospitals and clinics at a rate within their reach. More facilities would be in a position to change their gadgets for better services.

Focus on Generic Drugs: Growth of these medications can bring the essential costs of treatment, particularly for the economically challenged areas of the world downwards. Public agencies should seek the assistance of international partners in promoting generic medications even if they are cheap.

Long Waiting Lists for Treatment

Serious scarcity of hospital beds or equipment cannot be said as a problem, but rather over-attention to some patients and their little troubles and chronic waiting lists for the treatments years round without limits. In some regions, like the UK or Canada, patients often face long waiting lists to undergo treatments and specialist consultations due to a lack of appropriate medical staff or an appropriate amount of available healthcare funds. This can make health states worsen, leading to more complex health issues requiring more complex solutions in the future, and time.

This situation has been aggravated moreover by the COVID-19 pandemic when healthcare systems in almost all countries were drowning due to a large acute care volume resulting in staggering backlogs and unnecessary waiting for patients.

Proposed Solutions

Increase of Healthcare Funding: More funds need to be allocated by governments towards healthcare so that the burden of waiting is reduced. Increasing the number of staff which includes doctors and nurses or other specialists enables the healthcare systems to raise the patient turnover.

Private-Public Collaboration: Public systems as is the case in this study may benefit from exposure to waiting time reduction, in collaboration with the use of private healthcare clinics. People who can pay for quicker treatment should have the right to do so, and the public system would benefit by losing no more resources.

New Approaches in Scheduling: Scheduling patients over the electronic health record systems may also help lessen the waiting period for treatment. Healthcare centers can also use advanced tools that would help address patients on a priority basis thereby enhancing patient care.

Conclusion

While the world healthcare system has many underlying issues, they can be solved if such issues are worked on together in a way that guarantees everyone effective medical services. Innovative solutions such as these are inevitably looking at the future of healthcare, from improving the expertise of healthcare workers to eliminating long waiting periods and even making sure that patients with rare diseases get the treatment they need.