PROMOTING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BETWEEN INDIA AND THE U.S.

Global Shortage of Health Workforce and The MSF

Winstep decided to reach out to our scholars and ask what they are involved in outside of research at their home institutions this summer. The responses we got showed very impressive work being done by our Khorana and SN Bose scholars! We are going to upload multiple articles that some scholars have shared with us:

This article is from Shreyan Mohapatra, he wrote about The Global Shortage of Health Workforce and The MSF (Doctors without Borders):

 

“The dearth in health workforce may not be quite noticeable to all, but is an alarming situation for most impoverished third world countries. The World Health Organization has estimated that the figure stands at 7.3 million currently and is expected to increase to 12.9 million by the year 2035. It’s a situation bound to raise more than a few eyebrows.

There are several reasons for this, one being an aging workforce not being replaced adequately, as well as a lack of young people entering the profession or being inadequately trained. It can also be attributed to an increase in demand. The world’s population has been on the rise and the life expectancy has increased significantly, causing an increased demand from this sector towards non-communicable diseases (cancer, heart diseases, strokes etc). At the same time, more than half of the world’s population living in third world countries like India, Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia, etc, are suffering due to inadequate availability of primary health care. People living in such countries most often suffer from communicable diseases (Tuberculosis, Ebola, Influenza etc) due to poor hygiene and lack of access to proper healthcare information.

When I was supervising 5 families living in a village close to my medical college, I was surprised at their lack of knowledge on healthcare aspects of life, even though they would be labeled under the ‘literate’ population of the country. Their lack of knowledge on basic hygiene, importance of vaccination, proper postpartum care of mother and infant amongst many others was a revelation as to how important it was not only to provide people with health care facilities, but also educate them on matters they can handle by themselves. After all, a prevention is better than cure.

Not straying from the point at hand though, it will be impossible to impart proper knowledge without an adequately educated workforce. The 47 Sub-Saharan countries have only 168 medical schools, of these 11 countries have no medical school and 24 countries have only 1 medical school. The recent Ebola crisis highlighted this problem. The shortage of a properly trained workforce was so evident that even the MSF(Medicins Sans Frontieres), also known as the Doctors Without Borders, couldn’t cope up with the demand. The people working with the MSF are extremely noble, devoting their life to the betterment of humanity in places where people don’t venture into. A stint with the MSF should be considered by everyone in the Healthcare Fraternity.

I still haven’t worked with them, but I do plan on working in the future. It would be rewarding to see that my knowledge would be helpful to so many people who wouldn’t be able to access this in their normal setting. As Yoko Ono once said that “Every Drop in the Ocean Counts”, every single effort will help in making the world a better place. Not just for you and me, but for everyone.”
 

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