There isn’t a place on the planet that isn’t experiencing some kind of lack when it comes to healthcare. Deterioration of culture and healthy environmental factors have big influences on how healthcare is being treated all over the planet. No matter the modernity or wealth of a country, healthcare, in all environments, is being affected more by financial gain, capitalistic healthcare, and growing health concerns for a global population.
Here are some of the most concerning lapses that we are seeing in the healthcare world today. These issues, left unchecked, have the power to change humanity and our evolution. These healthcare issues are being faced by every country and population on the planet.
Clean Water and Sterile Environments
Although we like to think these two things are available in most parts of the world, much of the world still struggles to obtain clean water and sterile environments during procedures. These two things are important for sterilization, hydration, and preventing infection. This is still a problem for hospitals even when they are considered sterile environments. There is no way to completely sterilize an environment without sealing environments. The simple act of doctors, nurses, and patients interacting makes that complete sterile environment impossible.
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In modern industrialized cities and towns, a surgical supply store can keep healthcare facilities stocked with packaged sterile supplies. This can be counted on to keep microbes and bacteria off the instruments and supplies until they are opened. Many places around the world do not have access to these supply centers.
Birth and Postpartum
Birth and the time right after birth, called postpartum, are some of the most influential times in a woman and baby’s life. It is considered a very natural and sacred time that, in many cultures, is seen as a medical condition. In other parts of the world, it is still something done at home, far away from medical training of any kind. In either scenario, there are health concerns that can deeply affect the mother and baby for many years.
In modern society, postpartum is often overlooked as modern-day stressors quickly take over. The repair and rest needed for a new mother is meant to be so that the body can recover from the intense trauma it goes through in labor. When rest and rejuvenation is skipped, it can have lasting effects on the female body. It also provides a birthing culture where the fear of degradation to the body supersedes the desire to conceive.
Infant mortality rates are still at high numbers in most cultures due to umbilical cord prolapse, prolonged labor, birth asphyxia, birth complications, malaria, measles, malnutrition, and low birth weight. Healthcare has yet to see the needs of mothers and newborns as one of the most natural and necessary transformations of life.
Death and Hospice
On the other side of the spectrum, also the most natural part of life, is our transition to death. In many modern countries, healthcare is focused on keeping someone alive as opposed to letting the dying process be also apart of healthcare. Hospice is one of the western services that is provided through the healthcare system that is set up to help humans through the transition of death.
The business of healthcare has shifted its focus to keeping people alive longer to avoid death. Once someone dies, the healthcare system passes the body onto another industry. The complication with the journey to death, being apart of the healthcare system, is that there is a bias toward extracting as much money from the person before they pass in the name of keeping them alive. Hospice is one of the only services that is covered by healthcare that accepts the fact that someone is dying and they need extra support and care during that time.
Rising Inflation of Pharmaceuticals
One of the hardest parts of the healthcare system is the rising cost of pharmaceuticals that many sick people need. The more sick people get the more rising costs of medicine. As new illnesses are discovered, pharmaceutical companies have to procure new medicines to deliver. Although there have been many wonder drugs that help people, the prices tend to be too much for people to afford them.
As long as people live, good healthcare will be a concern. The quality of life from birth to death should be as good as we can make it.