On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 23:40:50 GMT, David Evans wrote:
>the problem of diverting skilled pharmacists/doctors in, for example,
>a war zone to the laborious task of sorting through stacks of assorted
>drugs with foreign names. The article implied that overall it was
>counterproductive and that supply of drugs was best done through major
>aid agencies and governments.
>
>What do others think?
I got involved back in 1983 with an operation that collected surplus
and expired stock from GPs to send to the so-called 'third world'.
It was a disaster! You can imagine 1000s of tablets to sort when they
come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. People were very sweet but how
the hell do you rationalise sending a poor country designer drugs that
are probably useless for their needs?
Needless to say that as soon as I got onto the programme, I quickly
wound it down!
If you really want to help, this is what you do:
- focus on the things that will make a real difference: clean water,
education and infrastructure
- apply pressure on pharmas not to exploit or dump expensive drugs on
nations that cannot afford them or need them
- apply pressure for the implementation of the WHO's list of essential
drugs that every nation should have (part of the declaration of human
rights)
- stop behaving like little old ladies from Chipping Norton who think
that a knitted bunny is very useful in deepest Africa
- remove the debt burden
- encourage local solutions for local problems, self-esteem and
confidence and ownership
- the days of the missionary mindset have long gone
- finally, leave the poor buggers alone as they have managed quite
nicely for 1000s of years long before we had designer rich nations :-)
Risk
---------------------------------
Dr Ahmad Risk
Editor Health Informatics Europe
http://hi-europe.co.uk
Tel: +44 1273 321805
Fax: +44 1273 774614
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