(I apologize ahead of time for how long this post is…)
First off, I wanted to start by saying Pablo and I made it onto the HCB website/facebook/instagram!
But now to the real topic of today’s post…
Health care is a fundamental human right. In the recent past, the US has taken a few progressive steps towards reaching this goal. However, in Brazil, this statement has been put in place and carried out for the last 27 years. Since 1988 Brazil has had universal health care, or Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). After this system was put into effect Brazil was left with two types of health care. Public and Private. The private system functions much like the US system where people have health insurance through employers. The public system is government funded and allows everyone, young and old, to have access. And this access isn’t just to primary care. Barretos Cancer Hospital is the perfect example of a purely cancer hospital that is in the public system. This means people can get even the most expensive treatments available for free or at a discount. Something the US only sees at St. Jude’s, an amazing institution that unfortunately can only treat children.
And while like any healthcare system, SUS faces difficulties, overall, the program costs much less than the current US system. Most of the problems come in the form of the long wait times and lack of access for many Brazilians. And while many people are quick to attribute these factors to a universal healthcare system, the problems are oddly familiar to many in the US pre-Obamacare. And while at this point you may be saying, “Megh, we don’t really have long wait times in the US, you’re crazy,” hear me out. The long wait times in Brazil are mainly due to one thing…lack of doctors. And while many people living in affluent suburbs may never think the US is lacking in doctors, due to population growth over the next 10 years, it’s predicted we will need at least an additional 50,000 PRIMARY CARE doctors just in the US. Not even accounting for specialized medicine (1). And this doesn’t even address all the people living in rural areas right now without any access.
(4)
Recently Brazil has undertaken the challenge of raising the doctor number by “importing” doctors from Cuba (which I actually found out because everyone assumes we are doctors and people kept asking me if I’m Cuban) (2). But like the US, most doctors want to live somewhere more prosperous and therefore it’s hard to get doctors to where they are needed. Which brings me to my next point, about the lack of access.
In Brazil, one of the biggest struggles when it comes to healthcare is the great divide of location and money. In the south, there are richer people, richer cities and more doctors (granted with richer cities also comes poorer neighborhoods). But in the north, there is little access to physicians, small towns, and poor people. Unlike the US where the division is mainly economical. A lot of US states have urban and rural populations and doctors tend to stay in the urban areas, reducing rural access. However, we often don’t find massive nationwide geographic divisions like Brazil.
Its because of these divisions that people in rural areas in the states and some of the more rural northern Brazilian states can go without seeing the most basic of healthcare for years. Doctors often don’t come from poorer areas and if they do, usually don’t want to return. This is what makes what HCB does especially awesome. With the mobile units that are sent out, more people are able to be seen than in previous years. Pablo and I have gotten to see the units that stay nearby, however, tomorrow, we will have the chance to travel up to Mato Grosso (a state north of us but in central-west Brazil) for a few days. We will get to witness how mobile units function up there, especially with respect to skin cancer- which we haven’t seen yet. This is especially interesting for us since our Melacap device has been created to be used in settings like Mato Grosso, where healthcare is limited and travel is difficult.
(we are the little blue dot, Mato Grosso is the red state) (3)
At this time I think it’s crucial to mention another amazing institution: Rice 360 Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB). When we live in a world where people die because healthcare is inaccessible or too expensive, BTB has been striving to save lives. Over the years BTB has created many amazing low resource technologies that are changing healthcare. I am so glad I have been able to be a part of this amazing institution.
Sources
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495923/
2.http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-struggle-for-universal-healthcare/361854/
3. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Brazil_State_MatoGrosso.svg/2000px-Brazil_State_MatoGrosso.svg.png
4. http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2009/10/health-care-all-obama-universal.jpg