Health systems: What do we need? More money?

There is  saying: Money answereth all things. Even in health, many times the belief is that things will be better even in developing contexts "if only we had more money". Is that really true? Is all we need money? If that were the case, with the influx of donor aid following the formation of the millennium development goals, the health status and development of struggling countries like mine would have been resolved but that is not the case. The graph below is a comparison of spending and life expectancy(2000).

Countries that invest more in health generally have better health than those that don't however the good health could be due a cascade of other things such s good roads,fewer wars etc. Interestingly, there seem to be diminishing returns in health status regardless of increases expenditure beyond a certain point(above). Comparison between countries with similar economies (OECD) illustrates this further.

Capitalism: A cause and Linchpin of poor health.

According to Dictionary.com, Capitalism is:
An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Dr. Owain Williams(Centre for Health and International Relations, UK), presented a lecture on Governance: Globalisation, Institutions and Capitalism. He discussed the challenges in Global health governance such as boarder-less disease, the crisis of non-communicable diseases, resource scarcity, failure of co-ordination, supply and demand challenges(causing low R&D for neglected diseases) and market failure. With increasing Public-Private-Partnerships, privatisation, emergence of numerous NGOs with better wage structures than government institutions, globalisation of health services, pharmaceutical companies' TRIPS agreements.. Health has become a commodity that can be bought by the highest bidder. This is disadvantages poorer communities.The main health impact of capitalism is increased inequality. He argues that this is not normal, accidental or necessary.

I think the presentation was interesting, broadening my understanding on the ways in which disposition for economic gain tips the balance for health in favour of the rich. Governments need to ensure that their health systems protect and meet the needs of their poor.


"As a species we are increasingly eating, drinking and smoking ourselves to death." Owain Williams

Foreign Aid: Gift?

According to Derrida 1992: " For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt. If the other gives me back or owes me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long-term deferral or difference.

For there to be a gift, it is necessary ... that the donee not give back, amortize, reimburse, acquit himself, enter into a contract, and that he never have contracted a debt ... It is thus necessary, at the limit, that he not recognize the gift as gift. If he recognizes it as gift, if the gift appears to him as such, if the present is present to him as present, this simple recognition suffices to annul the gift. Why? Because it gives back, in the place, let us say, of the thing itself, a symbolic equivalent"

All I can say is "Selah!"(Think on that)!!!!