7th April was celebrated as World Health Day by World Health Organization (WHO). Every year the day is celebrated with a particular theme and WHO organizes international, regional and local events related to that theme. This year’s theme was Diabetes and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon marked the Day with a strong call for stepping up global efforts to halt the rise in diabetes and improve the lives of those living with this dangerous but preventable and treatable disease.
The First World Health Day was celebrate in 1950, after the First World Health Assembly in 1948. It is basically held to mark WHO's founding, and is seen as an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year. World Health Day is acknowledged by various governments and non-governmental organizations with interests in public health issues, who also organize activities and highlight their support in media reports, such as the Global Health Council.
Good health is one of the most important considerations for the human beings today. And, a healthy life guarantees an active and better life. With the advancements in science and technology and particularly in medicine and medical facilities, human beings should have been able to control or completely eradicate many diseases. However, that has not been the case and serious issues still persist.
Mostly, it has nothing to do with the incapacity of human beings to deal with these diseases. There have been many major breakthroughs in the medical field and most of the diseases can be cured easily by the doctors, but the main issue is of sociological and political nature. Unfortunately, there are many who do not have access to medical facilities as most of the medical facilities have been privatized and only privilaged class can have access to them. The poor people around the world can never even think about those facilities.
Only some of the countries have managed to provide quality health facilities through government programs while the rest still have very expensive doctors, medicines and facilities. The underdeveloped and developing countries suffer the most in this regard.
Afghanistan is one of the countries that are suffering from the dearth of better medical facilities for most of its people. The health facilities are not proper and most of the diseases that people suffer from stay untreated even in the large cities of the country. At the same time, the quality of services provided by government hospitals is really very low, their number is not sufficient and they are not established in most of the remote areas; therefore, most of the people do not have access to them. On the other hand private hospitals have been established that can, in no way, be afforded by the people who do not have enough food to eat.
Most of the people are compelled to go to other countries for treatment. They mostly go to the neighboring countries like India and Pakistan and there again they have to spend a large sum of money. Apart from the health services they avail they have to pay for the travel expenses as well. If there are such facilities provided in the country, the people would never require to go out and would not take money out of the country as well. However, it is important to note that such facilities can only be acquired by the rich people. As the ruling class in our society can pay for those facilities they mostly do not care whether the poor people in the country can have better access to health facilities.
Such a scenario is really dreadful and there should be serious efforts to deal with the situation. Short-term projects will never solve the health issues in Afghanistan. Afghan government and the supporting nations must pursue long-term strategies to handle the issue, if they want to help the people of Afghanistan.
At the same time, corruption and loose control, regarding the quality of medicine that is sold in the country, is another major issue, which is responsible for further debilitating the health of the people instead of supporting them during their ill health.
An earlier investigation by Independent Media Consortium (IMC) Productions showed that though millions of dollars have been poured into the health sector, there are many Afghans who have their nearest health center at a distance of three days and unfortunately two-thirds of pharmacies do not have professional staff.
Such a scenario is really dreadful and worth special attention; moreover, only lip service would do no good to change the scenario. Therefore, the authoritative people must take necessary measures and must curb the situation as the issue is very delicate and it is related to the lives of the people. Carelessness in this regard is a type of indirect murder.