Entries from The WIP Contributors tagged with 'Healthcare'

Religious Beliefs Prevent Kenyan Parents from Seeking Conventional Medicine for Children

by Rachel Muthoni -Kenya- In a bid to keep their religious faith, some Kenyan parents do not take their children to hospitals, even for the most basic immunization. Such parents believe that only God heals and seeking conventional medicine is...

Resurgence of Kidney Tourism in Pakistan

by Zubeida Mustafa -Pakistan- A version of the following article was originally published August 12, 2009. In light of recent reports of illegal kidney transplants in Pakistan, the author has updated the article. – Ed. Several years ago Pakistan’s newspapers...

The World's Best and Worst Places to Be a Mother

Where in the world are the best and worst places to be a mother? Watch this Link TV/Save the Children documentary – The Mothers Index – and learn about how you can get involved in supporting mothers and children around...

Advance Directives, Not “Death Panels”:
Moving Beyond the Hysteria

by Deborah K. Cruze, JD MA - USA - Kareem lays silently, hooked up to a ventilator and numerous other machines in the Intensive Care Unit. His family surrounds him, anxiously discussing what the next step should be. Yesterday he...

More than Olives and Sunshine: Spain’s Carte de Salud

by Handan T. Satiroglu - Europe/USA - Spaniards enjoy one of the world’s longest lives: A girl born today can expect a lifespan of 84 years, a boy 78 years. In 2000 the World Health Organization used a variety of...

À votre santé: Socialized Healthcare in France

by Aralena Malone-Leroy News Editor, The WIP - France - In 2006, my husband and I decided to move from San Jose, California to Paris, France. The choice between Silicon Valley and the City of Light may seem like a...

Fighting Kidney Tourism in Pakistan

by Zubeida Mustafa - Pakistan - A few years ago, Pakistan’s newspapers and magazines were awash with pictures of shirtless men displaying scars on their torsos indicating they were organ donors. There were villages where practically every male adult claimed...

Say Hello to Yellow: State-Sponsored Healthcare in Denmark

by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Danes are often dubbed “the happiest people in the world” by the U.S. media, and this may be due in part to Denmark’s advanced state-managed, single-provider healthcare system. Every citizen – as well as...

Brazil’s Homeless: Employed and on the Streets

by Melissa Costa - USA / Brazil - Regina sings to loud Brazilian country music while her skillful hands turn old Santa Claus hats into dresses and pieces of beverage cans into ornaments. Immersed in nostalgia, Regina relives her difficult...

"Fat Activists" Seek Law Banning Weight Discrimination

by Mridu Khullar - India / USA - In December 2008, Binghamton, New York, became one of just six cities in the United States to enact laws protecting against weight discrimination. The others are San Francisco and Santa Cruz (California),...

“Promoting self-help, not sympathy”: Kashmir’s She Hope Disability Centre Provides Support for a New Life

by Nusrat Ara - Indian-administered Kashmir - “Keep Guns Outside, Please.” The brightly-colored sign on the gates of She Hope Disability Centre is a reminder of Kashmir’s ongoing conflict. Sami Wani, the young manager, smiles when asked about the instruction....

Protection Around My Heart: Living as a Whole Person with Multiple Sclerosis

by Marin - USA - As I rode my scooter to an epic line of folks who had clearly been waiting for several hours to buy discount theater tickets, I was approached by a gentleman who led me to the...

Transcending Stereotypes: Parenting with a Disability

by Mary Grimley Mason - USA - When do the children of a mother with a disability discover that the outside world sees her as different or odd? Nair says her daughters hadn’t noticed her disability until her youngest, at...

Cultural Stigma and Myth: Disabled Women in Kenya are Vulnerable to Sexual Violence

by Rosemary Okello - Kenya - In the face of escalating of sexual violence in Kenya, women with disabilities are more vulnerable than ever. A recent study by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-K) - a women’s rights...

Living “One Day at a Time” in the Economic Crisis:
The New Face of America’s Middle Class

by Rose-Anne Clermont - Germany - The irony of Pierrette’s troubles could be seen, from one viewpoint, as tragic: She’s a pediatrician but got lost within the maze of the medical system once her son became ill; she once treated...

Paying for the Bailout: How Unnecessary Medical Procedures Are Taxing the System

by Nora W. Coffey - USA - As we tighten our belts at home and abroad, we are all accountable for the burden of national debt we pass along to future generations. Local and international relief efforts for the poor...

The Rise of Medical Tourism: Americans Head to Foreign Shores for Healthcare

by Mridu Khullar - India - According to the National Coalition of Health Care in America, in 2007, total national health expenditures were expected to rise 6.9 percent—twice the rate of inflation. Healthcare spending is 4.3 times the amount spent...

The Hard Truth Behind Asia's Health Care Worker Exodus

by Imelda V. Abaño - The Philippines - For decades, the Philippines, one of the poorest countries in Asia, has provided skilled medical professionals primarily to wealthy places such as the United States, Europe and the Middle East. But as...

National Healthcare? Too Many Hands in the Honey Pot

by Katie Thompson - USA - Elections invite a whirlwind of campaign promises: some that are feasible, some that are not, and some that will be forgotten on Inauguration Day. One of the most prominent issues for the Democratic candidates...

Obstetric Fistula: A Medical Nightmare for Malawian Women

by Pilirani Semu-Banda - Malawi - Veronica Yakobe has been living a nightmare for more than two decades. Twenty-three years ago, during a prolonged labor when giving birth to her fifth child, the unborn baby was pressed so tightly in...

A Journalist’s Despair: HIV-Positive Zimbabweans Can't Access ARVs

By Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - I am always left cursing and depressed and angry after covering assignments where I meet with People Living With HIV and AIDS. (We call them PLWAs here.) • Weighing only 90 pounds when she...

Systematic Abuses of Women and Children in Zimbabwe's Women's Prison Stirs Up a Hornet's Nest

by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In 2003, gender activists from the Zimbabwe Women Writers group published a book entitled A Tragedy of Lives: Women in Prison in Zimbabwe. It revealed shocking human rights abuses in the country’s prison system....

Open Letter to the Next US President: Get Tougher on Mugabe's Despotic Government, But Send Aid for the Suffering Zimbabweans

by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - “When elephants fight, it is the grass which suffers.” – African Proverb The Zimbabwean government introduced an ambitious Antiretroviral Drugs (ARVs) program in 2004, but Ropafadzo Kondo, who tested HIV positive in 1999, got...

Bureaucracy Killed a Man: Slovenia's Health Care System Creates Another Tragedy

by Viktorija Plavcak Slovenia Two weeks ago in Celje, the third largest city in Slovenia, a fifty-year old man, barely able to drive himself to the hospital, walked into the ER in the middle of the night complaining about shortness...

Will Sex with a Virgin Cure HIV/AIDS? - Why Zambian Children Are Being Defiled: The Courts Try New Measures to Stop the Record Number of Cases

by Delphine Zulu - Zambia - • Zambian school children. Photograph by Jennifer Milner. •The number of children being defiled in Zambia has continued to increase dramatically because of a widespread belief that having sex with a virgin will cure...

AIDS Crisis in Zambia Weighs Heavily on Women

by Delphine Zulu - Zambia - The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Zambia among adults aged 15-49 is currently at 16%. For every infected man, three women are infected with the virus....