Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Aug 15 2009 (IPS) – While the swine flu pandemic has not hit India too hard, it has sorely tested the country s ailing health delivery system and its plans to remedy the situation through private-public partnerships.
Much of the drama is playing out in the western Indian city of Pune where the death of a 14-year-old schoolgirl, on Aug. 3, following misdiagnosis at a private hospital where she was being treated, has led to charges in the media that the government was not doing enough contain the spread of the A(H1N1) virus.
Health authorities reacted to the death of the schoolgirl, Reeda Shaikh, by asking people who develop flu-like symptoms to report to designated government facilities for testing. That quickly resulted in panic and chaos wit…
Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Jul 26 2010 (IPS) – As African Union heads of state consider child and maternal health at the 2010 summit in Kampala, Uganda, the perennial question of user fees has reared its head in Zimbabwe. Fees for services are opening a growing gap between policy and implementation in maternal health care in the Southern African country.
Under government policy, care for pregnant women, new mothers and infants receive free care. But the country s rapid economic decline in the past decade has compelled health institutions to raise their own revenue to meet costs.
Women complain they are being denied health access because of failure to meet maternity and other hospital costs. New mother Thandeka Mbewe says she has been through it all, and is having second…
At night, groups of people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) community gather in meeting spots like this one in the El Vedado neighbourhood in Havana, Cuba. Others go to cruising spots for quick anonymous sex. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
HAVANA, Nov 13 2015 (IPS) – When night falls, young men can be seen sitting on a dismantled bus stop on a remote hill far from the centre of the C…
Credit: United Nations
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 2020 (IPS) – The coronavirus—which has claimed the lives of over 538,000 people and infected more than 11.6 million worldwide—has destabilized virtually every facet of human life ever since its outbreak in late December.
Providing a grim economic scenario of the devastation caused by the pandemic including rising poverty, hunger and unemployment UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last week of the possibility of a…
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 31 2021 (IPS) – With elections right round the corner in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said that a re-elected Liberal government would spend billions in the coming years to hire family doctors. This says, Justin Trudeau promised that the Liberals would spend $3 billion over four years starting in 2022 to hire 7500 family doctors and nurses as well as tax and student loan incentives for health professionals who set up shop in rural or remote communities and also pledges an extra $6 billion to wrestle with wait lists.
Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan
A 2019 states that there were 91,375 physicians in Canada, representing 241 physicians per 100…