scholarly journals Health in the Name of Justice: Does Justice Require a Right to Health

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Morgan Horwood
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Just Community ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Medical Advances ◽  
Illness And Disease

<p>Upholding and seeking justice in society has been important for philosophers and religious thinkers throughout the ages. Debates of different conceptions of justice have ranged from Plato’s conception of the just individual, to Aristotle’s just community where individuals receive what is owed to them according to their merit, to Kant’s claim that justice concerns the “… exercise of will among people; and it is concerned with the possibility and freedom of the exercise of will …” (Hudson, 2003, p. 11). Interpretations of justice and the value of justice in society vary. Fundamentally, however, theories of justice are concerned with answering the question, what do we as a society owe each other by determining the set of rights that are inalienable and vital for a just society to protect. Theories of justice hope to inform us of the rights that are essential for society to defend and uphold. The ever increasing amount of medical knowledge and sophisticated medical treatments now available raise questions of social justice in health and has prompted many to argue whether or not there is a right to health. As Charles Fried (1976) explained over thirty years ago, extending certain medical treatments to the poor seemed possible and inevitable during a period when certain medical advances in treating illness and disease, such as the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, made a huge difference to the health of the population. He claims that in this “ ‘Golden Age’ we could unambiguously afford a notion of a general right to medical care because there were a number of clear successes available to medicine, and these successes were not unduly costly” (p. 29-30). However, as Fried recognised in the 1970s, and is even truer today with the costs associated with chronic illnesses, extending universal medical care to all in society in cases where treatment is expensive and marginally beneficial is problematic at best.</p>

scholarly journals Health in the Name of Justice: Does Justice Require a Right to Health

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Morgan Horwood
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Just Community ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Medical Advances ◽  
Illness And Disease

<p>Upholding and seeking justice in society has been important for philosophers and religious thinkers throughout the ages. Debates of different conceptions of justice have ranged from Plato’s conception of the just individual, to Aristotle’s just community where individuals receive what is owed to them according to their merit, to Kant’s claim that justice concerns the “… exercise of will among people; and it is concerned with the possibility and freedom of the exercise of will …” (Hudson, 2003, p. 11). Interpretations of justice and the value of justice in society vary. Fundamentally, however, theories of justice are concerned with answering the question, what do we as a society owe each other by determining the set of rights that are inalienable and vital for a just society to protect. Theories of justice hope to inform us of the rights that are essential for society to defend and uphold. The ever increasing amount of medical knowledge and sophisticated medical treatments now available raise questions of social justice in health and has prompted many to argue whether or not there is a right to health. As Charles Fried (1976) explained over thirty years ago, extending certain medical treatments to the poor seemed possible and inevitable during a period when certain medical advances in treating illness and disease, such as the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, made a huge difference to the health of the population. He claims that in this “ ‘Golden Age’ we could unambiguously afford a notion of a general right to medical care because there were a number of clear successes available to medicine, and these successes were not unduly costly” (p. 29-30). However, as Fried recognised in the 1970s, and is even truer today with the costs associated with chronic illnesses, extending universal medical care to all in society in cases where treatment is expensive and marginally beneficial is problematic at best.</p>

scholarly journals Visits to Pediatric Clinics by Adult Patients: A Nationwide Survey in Taiwan

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1538
Author(s):  
Kang-Lung Lee ◽  
An-Min Lynn ◽  
Tzeng-Ji Chen ◽  
Ling-Yu Yang ◽  
Shu-Chiung Chiang
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Surgical Techniques ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Congenital Diseases ◽  
Medical Centers ◽  
New Information ◽  
Academic Medical ◽  
Airway Infections

Pediatricians are trained to provide non-surgical medical care to children. Improvements in medical treatments and surgical techniques have extended the survival of children with congenital diseases and chronic illnesses. Consequently, pediatricians may provide continuous medical service to their patients into adulthood. Meanwhile, as Taiwan’s birth rate has fallen to one of the lowest in the world, pediatricians are encountering growing competition. As a source of continued revenue, pediatricians could also provide medical care to adults with common diseases and patients with adult-onset chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of adult ambulatory visits to pediatric clinics recorded by Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) system during 2000 to 2011. From 1/500 sampling datasets, we found that adult ambulatory visits to pediatric clinics rose steadily and statistically significantly from 16% of total visits to pediatric clinics in 2000 to 32% in 2011. Analysis of the diagnoses associated with adult ambulatory visits to pediatric clinics indicated that the most common diagnoses for such patients at academic medical centers were chronic illnesses, including epilepsy, cardiac and circulatory congenital anomalies, and diabetes. Meanwhile, at physician clinics, airway infections/diseases and gastroenteritis were the most common diagnoses. In an era of low birth rates, our findings contribute to an evidence-based discussion and provide new information that may assist in healthcare policymaking.

scholarly journals The future: medical advances in MEN1 therapeutic approaches and management strategies

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. T179-T193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel S van Leeuwaarde ◽  
Joanne M de Laat ◽  
Carolina R C Pieterman ◽  
Koen Dreijerink ◽  
Menno R Vriens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Neuroendocrine Tumors ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Peptic Ulcers ◽  
Metastatic Progression ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Mortality Causes ◽  
Medical Advances

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 is a rare autosomal inherited disorder associated with a high risk for patients to simultaneously develop tumors of the parathyroid glands, duodenopancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and tumors of the anterior pituitary gland. Early identification ofMEN1in patients enables presymptomatic screening of manifestations, which makes timely interventions possible with the intention to prevent morbidity and mortality. Causes of death nowadays have shifted toward local or metastatic progression of malignant neuroendocrine tumors. In early cohorts, complications like peptic ulcers in gastrinoma, renal failure in hyperparathyroidism, hypoglycemia and acute hypercalcemia were the primary causes of early mortality. Improved medical treatments of these complications led to a significantly improved life expectancy. The MEN1 landscape is still evolving, considering the finding of breast cancer as a new MEN1-related manifestation and ongoing publications on follow-up and medical care for patients with MEN1. This review aims at summarizing the most recent insights into the follow-up and medical care for patients with MEN1 and identifying the gaps for future research.

The Tyranny of the Ideal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Inquiry ◽  
Open Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Just Society ◽  
The Ideal

This book lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. It shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. The book argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, the book points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. The book defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, this book rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

BME and the improvement of doctors

1929 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 570-573
Author(s):  
R. A. Luria
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Health Care System ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Advanced Training ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Individual Doctor ◽  
Special Scientific ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Care System

The issues of raising the qualifications of doctors occupy a prominent place in the Soviet health care system and it can be said without exaggeration that improvement is currently the task of each individual doctor, both in the periphery and in the center. This task is given to him every day by life itself, starting with the exuberant growth of the population's needs for qualified and special medical care and ending with a huge network of preventive and medical institutions of the People's Commissariat for Health, constantly in need of not only doctors in general, but especially demanding specialists who are at the height of modern medical knowledge. The institutes for advanced training of doctors, numerous special scientific Institutes of the People's Commissariat of Health, various kinds of individual courses of all kinds are conducting intense and fruitful work to replenish the knowledge of a doctor and to develop scientifically educated specialists in all fields of medicine

scholarly journals Liberalni odgovori na problem uskraćivanja zdravstvene skrbi djeci i maloljetnicima iz religijskih razloga

JAHR ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Ivan Cerovac ◽  
Maša Dunatov
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
The State ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Liberal Feminism ◽  
Liberal Egalitarianism ◽  
The World ◽  
Liberal Multiculturalism ◽  
State Interventions ◽  
Religious Reasons

Medical experts, both in Croatia and in the world, are facing nowadays an increasing number of cases where the parents refuse, because of certain religious reasons, medical care and certain medical treatments for their children, even though those treatments could preserve the children’s health or even save their lives. The parents are convinced that they are acting with good intentions and in child’s favour, which leads to certain problems regarding the regulation of these cases, as well as to disagreements regarding the rights of parents and their children, or the legitimacy of state interventions in this sphere. This paper puts forward four possible liberal solutions to the above described problem (liberal archipelago, liberal multiculturalism, liberal egalitarianism and liberal feminism), specifies the scope of legitimate interventions by the state that these theories allow, and reviews the advantages of each position, as well as the most important objections directed toward each.

UNMET NEED FOR ADDITIONAL MEDICAL CARE FOR SICK CHILDREN IN MOTHER’S VIEW IN RURAL BANGLADESH: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVING CHILD HEALTH SERVICES

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 769-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
NURUL ALAM
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Unmet Needs ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Rural Bangladesh ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Sick Children ◽  
Unmet Medical Needs

SummaryWhile a country’s health policy aims to provide health services to all who need them, very little in known about unmet need for additional medical care from users’ perspectives in Bangladesh. This study examined unmet medical need (defined as whether a mother felt that, to manage sickness, her child had required medical care that was not available, regardless of reasons and medical care sought) of 2123 under-15 sick children by illness and child’s socioeconomic characteristics in rural Bangladesh. The 1996 Health and Socioeconomic Survey conducted in Matlab recorded children’s chronic (a disease or a condition lasting 3 months or more) and acute (a disease or a condition with a rapid onset and a short, severe course) morbidity, medical care sought to combat illness and unmet needs for additional medical services in mothers’ views to manage the illness. The survey also recorded household socioeconomic data. Logistic regression was used to examine the data. The results reveal that unmet needs for additional medical care were 5·4% for children with acute illnesses, and 30·2% for children with chronic illnesses. For chronic illnesses, seeking medical care to manage illness from any health provider outside the home reduced unmet medical needs. Economic inequalities existed for both acute and chronic illnesses: the odds ratio of unmet medical needs for sick children of the least poor households was 0·42 (95% CI: 0·28–0·64) times that for sick children of the very poor households. The critically high unmet needs for children’s chronic morbidity reveal that the chronic disease control programme in Bangladesh needs urgent revisiting and strengthening.

Case Studies of Chronically Ill Children

2019 ◽  
pp. 303-336
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Gibbon ◽  
Christopher L. Schwilk ◽  
Jenifer Cline ◽  
Kimberly Matthews ◽  
Katie Sweigart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Chronic Conditions ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Respiratory Illnesses ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Medical Advances ◽  
Severe Epilepsy

Medical advances have increased the number of children who have survived and are now living with chronic medical conditions (Irwin & Elam, 2011; Singer 2012). Diseases and conditions that as recently as a decade ago were considered fatal or completely debilitating are now increasingly treated as chronic conditions. Among these are several types of cancer, HIV/AIDS, respiratory illnesses, and severe epilepsy. Increasingly, students with severe chronic conditions are educated in public schools instead of home or hospital settings. The purpose of this chapter is to present case studies of real children and families that will allow educators and others a personal glimpse into the lives of children with chronic illness and their families. Suggestions for analyzing the case studies are provided that will help teachers, administrators, and teacher educators to examine the complex issues surrounding the educational needs of children with chronic illnesses.

Neurocognitive Effects of Solid Organ Transplantation

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliya Zelikovsky ◽  
Debra S. Lefkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Organ Transplantation ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Organ Transplant ◽  
Solid Organ Transplant ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Solid Organ ◽  
Transplant Recipients ◽  
Transplant Patients ◽  
Neurocognitive Outcomes ◽  
Medical Advances

The first successful organ transplant was a kidney transplant performed between identical twins in 1954. Since that time, major medical advances have been made to help improve survival rates for transplant recipients. In 2008, there were 1,964 solid organ transplants performed for children under age 18 (2007 Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients [OPTN/SRTR] Annual Report 1997–2006). Currently, approximately 1,830 pediatric patients are awaiting some type of solid organ transplant (2007 OPTN/SRTR Annual Report 1997–2006). Organ transplantation in children is relatively recent compared to other treatments for children with chronic illnesses. The focus over the first few decades has been on medical advances and improving survival rates for transplant patients. In the recent years, increasing attention has been given to the developmental, neurocognitive, and psychosocial outcomes prior to transplant and in the short-term period post transplant. Most chronic illnesses and acute traumatic medical events have implications for neurocognitive outcomes. End-stage disease of the liver, kidney, heart, and lung are all believed to affect intellectual, academic, and neurocognitive functions. Gross neurodevelopmental deficits have become less common due to early medical intervention (e.g., improved nutrition, surgical intervention, reduced exposure to aluminum (Warady 2002). Organ transplantation is believed to ameliorate the deleterious long-term developmental and neurocognitive effects, but this topic has received little attention in the literature, and the available results with regard to intellectual, academic, and neurodevelopmental results have been mixed. In a combined sample of solid organ transplant patients, 40% had clinically significant cognitive delays (Brosig et al. 2006). Examining the impact of different underlying disease processes and transplantation of each solid organ separately is critical. Thus, we discuss the neurocognitive outcomes of each organ group separately in this chapter. Neurocognitive outcomes can be assessed in a variety of ways depending upon the age of the child. Among infants and toddlers, neurocognitive functioning is measured by an assessment of motor function, social and environmental interaction, and language development. Assessment of older children may involve the evaluation of intelligence, academic achievement, emotional and behavioral functioning, and adaptive skills.

Noncommunicable Diseases in Crisis Regions

2019 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
Sujatha Sankaran ◽  
Sriram Shamasunder ◽  
Marcia Glass ◽  
Mhoira E.F. Leng
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Kidney Disease ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Chronic Illnesses ◽  
Noncommunicable Diseases ◽  
Resource Limited Settings ◽  
Resource Limited ◽  
Symptomatic Management ◽  
Infectious Etiology

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) include a broad umbrella of illnesses that do not have an infectious etiology and usually need a chronic disease approach. Much of the challenge behind caring for patients with NCDs in resource-limited settings is the paradigm shift that many patients require from receiving medical care for acute illnesses to managing chronic illnesses. A few common NCDs are reviewed here—cardiomyopathies, dementia, cirrhosis, malignancies, and kidney disease. The etiologies and symptomatic management of each of these conditions in crisis regions are reviewed.

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