http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051679/Yue-Yue-dead-Chinese-girl-Wang-Yue-2-run-bystanders-watch-dies.html
Earlier this week, a two year old girl named Wang Yue was run over twice on a road in China, and ignored by 18 passersby. She died this morning, her death being a painful message of the increasing lack of morality despite its rapid economic growth. This is not directly related to healthcare, but it tells a story. We have always been trying to continuously push money into the economies and governments of developing countries, but we see that even in China, a now relatively successful country, there are huge issues that will develop. Even if there is adequate healthcare, we ignore the fact that we can't change the mentality of people.
She did eventually get to the hospital, but only after laying in the street for 10 minutes, completely ignored. This brings to light that there are many different aspects to international healthcare. Even if there are good systems available, we cannot ignore the fact that there are always going to be these situations. In order to keep healthcare moving forward, we have to make sure that people are educated in the importance of an interconnected society. Everything is related, and our actions affect others. We need to make sure that even though we cannot offer immediate healthcare to each other because we don't have a doctor's education, we can still save lives. Had just one person paid attention to her earlier, she would have an exponentially greater chance of surviving.
What this issue brings to light is the importance of engendering a more selfless mentality among humans. Most people aren’t using every single second of their day to help others, and it’s not that we should, but that more of us should be more willing to help those in need – especially when the need is so obvious. Now, one could say, in this day and age, the need is forever obvious; you need only turn on the news. And that is true to some extent. But it might also be prudent to remember that there are many people doing what they can to help others. There is a reason stories of such gross negligence aren’t being reported daily. Be that as it may, it is true that there is little downside if more people were more considerate and altruistic.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that providing good health care does not mean that people are safe now. In every international health care, education must provided with the other health care systems and aids. Without educating people, trial to solve the problem with the international care will be useless. This is one of reasons why it is so hard to solve the problem with international health in some developing countries that people are not educated about the health care.
ReplyDeleteThis particular situation is due to legal concerns in China, where people who help those who are hurt end up being sued successfully, regardless if they caused the injury or not. So I have to say that this is not entirely an issue of morality, but rather of government policy. But it does show just how much policy affects the actions of people, and governments often don't use this power to help as much as they are able to. Although changing how society behaves is a tough job, forcing it to change (as shown here) may work as well.
ReplyDelete