Is Life Worth It?

I want to share a quick story about how I experience the effects of rising health care costs in my line of work.

I work as an EMT (emergency medical technician) responding to emergencies, stabilizing patients, and transporting them to emergency rooms. Getting people to definitive care at a hospital for trauma accidents, cardiac conditions, strokes, seizures, etc. is imperative to their survival and long term-health, however, it is often very costly. As we know, not everyone has insurance but emergency responders will never turn a patient away. Those same people are generally impoverished, and ultimately more vulnerable to disease compared to wealthy individuals who can afford preventive care and quality insurance.

That being said, I remember a specific patient experiencing an ischemic stroke (block of blood vessel in brain) and needed to be taken to the closest stroke center. My partner and I stabilized the patient as much as we could and transported the patient immediately. The patient was an elderly, lower-class Hispanic male without insurance. My partner drove while I monitored the patient in the back while questioning the wife who rode in the back with me. She mourned. She was afraid. I assured her that we were doing our best and that her husband was in good hands. After a while, she explained that it was his third stroke and that they weren't even done paying for the first treatment. She was afraid for her husbands health, but at the same time, she was afraid to think about how they would pay off the hospital bills for a third round. I don't know if he passed away after dropping him off in the ER, but I know that his wife would be left the pay for the bill either way.

With the cost of health services and the current health care system, people can't even concentrate on wishing their loved ones to get better soon. People resort to questioning if being saved is even worth it. Some people disproportionately more than others. How can we let this happen, even in a "developed" society?

Solution to Global Poverty = Improved Global Health?

Did you know that “Between 2000 and 2011, about 24 percent of the growth in full income in low-income and middle-income countries resulted from [Value of Life Years] gained" (Global Health 2035)? This means that nearly a quarter of the growth these countries experienced over a decade came from better health of their people!

I've been asked several times if whether my interest in public health work counts as poverty alleviation. Sure, I'll be improving access to much-needed health services that impoverished communities may simply be unable to afford, but does that really count as improving their overall state of poverty?

I know that the answer is yes, but expressing it in an intellectual manner has been somewhat of a challenge. I was never quite able to place my finger on the necessary arguments to support my case.

But this Humanosphere article has provided me with some important resources to not only educate me on the ways that health is directly involved in poverty alleviation, but also allow me to explore important aspects that I had never really considered!

While the author argues that improving global health is the best solution by miles when compared with other aid and development programs, I believe that the latter are equally crucial supplements for bettering a developing country's conditions. Being constantly concerned by a child's chronic diarrhea or one's own tuberculosis can no doubt take away from a person's focus on earning a living or contributing to the country's economy. But even if health concerns are removed as a factor, the conditions for other socioeconomic inequalities would still exist, which would continue to render the healthy individual's opportunities limited. But he still has the right idea, in that global health has been severely neglected and its progress could have been much higher in the last few decades had more attention been paid to related endeavors. Thankfully, it is a rapidly growing field and I'm excited to see what opportunities await me!