Medical Migration and The Global Politics of Equality1

Author(s):  
Hannah Bradby

Employing doctors and nurses who were trained overseas has been standard practice since the inception of the British National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. However, by the twenty-first century, recruitment of doctors from Africa was being compared with the slave trade in terms of its exploitative and damaging effects: ‘current policies of recruiting doctors from poor countries are a real cause of premature death and untreated disease in those countries and actively contribute to the sum of human misery.’ The assertion that employing foreign doctors was causing poor health in those doctors’ countries of origin was echoed in two reports from global health organisations, which stressed the emigration of skilled healthcare personnel from the sub-Saharan region of Africa as being related to concomitant deterioration in populations ife expectancy and declared a ‘global health workforce crisis.

Author(s):  
Bernard Hope Taderera

The study of healthcare personnel migration in Ireland reports that most medical graduates plan to leave the country’s health system. It may be possible to address this challenge by understanding and addressing the reasons why young doctors plan to leave. Future studies should contribute to the retention of early career doctors in highincome countries such as Ireland. This will help reduce the migration of doctors from low- and middle-income countries in order to address the global health workforce crisis and its impact on the attainment of universal health coverage in all health systems.


Author(s):  
Yanzhong Huang

Focusing on BRICS countries, this chapter examines the profound implications arising from the growing and future role of emerging powers in global health governance (GHG). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, not only did BRICS countries shift towards net donors, but also their efforts in global health agenda setting and norm development increased. Their policy and practice in conducting health diplomacy constitute an alternative to the existing GHG paradigm. However, their role in GHG remains limited and mixed, as shown in the relatively small size of development assistance for health (DAH), a selective and state-centric approach to developing and participating in global health institutions, and the lack of progress working together and translating policy rhetoric into action. It is still too early to view these efforts as a counterbalance or counterforce to industrialized countries in GHG.


2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-367
Author(s):  
Isaac Kwesi Ampah ◽  
Gábor Dávid Kiss

AbstractThe countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have experienced a positive growth rate of over five per cent per year, on average, since their transition from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative in 1996 and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2006. Despite this growth, poverty and inequality are still very high. Employing the Driscoll – Kraay standard panel estimation method and dataset from 1990 to 2015, this paper sets out to examine the implications of external debt and capital flight on the general welfare of the people. The estimation results reveal that both external debt and capital flight have a welfare inhibiting effect, suggesting that increases in external borrowing or capital flight may lead to a reduction in the welfare of the people in the sub-region. The study, therefore, recommends to policymakers and government in the sub-region the need to tackle the revolving nature of external borrowing and capital flight and take steps to halt all channels through which deservingly acquired capital leaves the sub-region.


The concerns that appear throughout this book continue to resonate in the twenty-first century. For instance, courts and legislatures struggle to define the First Amendment's protection of the “free exercise of religion”; and Americans continue to look to their faith traditions for guidance on thorny conundrums of war, race, and sexuality. Two newly prevalent issues have emphasized the global dimensions of these themes. One is the role of Islam in American religion and politics. Another new area of focus is on ecology and the environment. This chapter presents the following documents: George W. Bush's “Freedom at War with Fear” (2001), Ingrid Mattson's “American Muslims Have a ‘Special Obligation’” (2001), Sam Harris' The End of Faith (2004), and Wendell Berry's “Faustian Economics” (2008).


Author(s):  
Mohammad Jahidur Rahman Khan ◽  
Samshad Jahan Shumu ◽  
Farzana Mim ◽  
Md. Selim Reza

Vaccines are one of the most significant innovations of modern science. Worldwide, millions of lives are saved each year by the vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy, which represents the refusal to receive vaccines when vaccination services are available and reachable, is a major obstacle to global health. While vaccine hesitancy has been present for many years, its damaging effects are likely to be more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic than ever before. This study aimed to find out common causes of vaccine hesitancy, assess COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rates worldwide, and present the approaches by which vaccine hesitancy rate can be reduced. This study revealed though vaccine hesitancy is a worldwide phenomenon, the causes differ from country to country or reign. More studies are needed to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, especially in the Middle and South America, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe. The leading causes of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy are found lack of confidence towards the government or pharmaceutical companies, less concern about the outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and shortage of supply of different types of COVID-19 vaccines. Healthcare personnel and social media play an essential role in addressing vaccine hesitancy. Convincing the general population about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, the consequence of being unvaccinated, and the delivery of free vaccines in an easily accessible way can reduce vaccine hesitancy rate.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde

The financial power of philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has raised questions about the intersection of philanthropy and global health. This chapter examines how and whether philanthropy has an effect on the global health agenda. It begins by defining philanthropy and exploring how philanthropy operates in international relations, philanthropy’s historical role in global politics, and its relationship to larger power dynamics. The second section identifies key global health philanthropic actors and their roles in global health governance. The third section describes the potential positive roles that philanthropic organizations can play in global health, bringing new ideas and additional resources. The final section critiques the relationship between philanthropy and global health, paying particular attention to how financial clout could distort the global health agenda and whether philanthropy covers up larger structural imbalances that give rise to health problems.


Author(s):  
Daniel Stedman Jones

This concluding chapter reviews how neoliberalism transformed British, American, and global politics. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the triumph of the free market was almost universally accepted by mainstream politicians, public officials, and civil servants. More importantly, the distinctive neoliberal brand of free market individualism had prevailed over alternative forms of managed market-based capitalism. Transatlantic neoliberal politics successfully transformed the commonsense assumptions of policymakers in Great Britain and the United States when confronted with social and economic problems, especially in the years after Margaret Thatcher left office. Value for money is effectively delivered through the discipline of the market to satisfy consumer wants. An equilibrium is achieved through the price mechanism, guiding the activities of disparate sellers and producers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Harris ◽  
Alexandre White

Over the past two decades, a sociology of global health has emerged. While this new subfield takes up some themes and issues that are familiar to the discipline as a whole—among them organizations, social movements, and the social construction of illness—it has also posed new questions and opened new research pathways by formulating and testing theory in environments radically different from the United States. This work has forced sociologists to confront the ethnocentrism of research paradigms that are grounded in the American experience and to consider classical assumptions and constructs in fruitful new ways. Notable recent literature reviews have taken up the issue of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, comparative healthcare systems, and the sociology of development. However, this review is the first to outline the contours of a coherent sociology of global health. It addresses several questions: What issues are being taken up in this emergent subfield? What added value comes from turning scholarly attention beyond our borders? And what new research agendas lie on the horizon?


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Carlos Lopes

Africa has recently come to the forefront of world politics as part of the emerging South. Its increased prominence in the global discourse as a “new frontier of development” signals the recognition of its economic potential. Indeed, the continent has registered an average 5 per cent annual GDP growth rate over the past decade. However, there is more to the story than that: The rising profile of the African continent also reveals the growing role of a number of its countries in the emergence of a new South agency. It is argued that South–South cooperation is an opportunity. The discussion of the current situation in Africa understood as a continent in all its diversity including sub-Saharan Africa, but also the Maghreb and Egypt, will therefore be placed into this wider context. The renewal of a South agency witnessed over the past decade is somewhat different from the trilateral alliance of Asia–Africa–Latin America formed in the wake of decolonization. Current mega-trends demonstrate that the global South, driven by a number of regional powers, will play a vital role in shaping the twenty-first century. Understanding the complexities of this renewed agency is vital for addressing old wounds that marked the emergence of a South voice in the not-so-distant past.


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