Access to health care is a crisis for a billion people on the planet in 2017.
Dr. Raj Panjabi
Providing Health Care Where There Is None
Civil war erupted in Liberia on Christmas Eve 1989, now the country of 4 million has just four doctors to serve the entire population; which, in perspective is like making all inhabitants of San Francisco be seen by just 10 doctors!
Worldwide, a billion people lack access to health care because they live too far from a clinic.
Dr. Panjabi’s quest to train community health workers is the only answer to this crisis of intolerable proportions. He was given the 2017 TED prize in hopes that his work training workers can expand to scale for the billion people without health care.
Panjabi’s experience training his own workers so far on only 30 proven medical interventions shows that training more could save nearly 30 million mothers and children by 2030.
The statistics show that providing just 30 proven services by community health workers will save 3 million lives a year.
Not too much to ask.
We’ve all heard of the tumult going on over head injuries, concussions, traumatic brain damage, the NFL; but, there is little specific information helping parents about their children and sports.
I’m told that during the war the brits had difficulty accepting that their wounded “chaps” with belly wounds shouldn’t be given tea to drink (it causes peritonitis) because doing so was such a national “tradition”—such is American football!
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Visually Impaired and Charles Bonnett
Psychiatrist Oliver Stacks Explains
The relaxed demeanor of Dr. Stacks is easy to understand when he explains the unease experienced by patients who are loosing their sight when they see something that isn’t there—the hallucinations of the Charles Bonnett Syndrome give fears of “loosing one’s mind” or other conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
Most have heard about the “phantom limb syndrome” experienced by individuals who have lost a limb; but, almost no-one has heard of that happening when sight is lost, although it does.
Dr. Stacks explained how the phenomenon was first seen and described in the literature by Dr. Charles Bonnett (hence the syndrome’s name) when his father lost his sight. It now has been described as a “not rare” occurrence in people whose vision is becoming impaired not just those who are blind.
There is a “comfort,” of sorts, from knowing that there is a name for what is happening, that it’s “normally” seen and not an additional problem and that it’s not a harbinger of something worse.
In addition, just knowing about it and learning about what makes it happen—who knows, might lead to one day being able to develop artificial eyes. Stranger things have happened.
