Primary Health Care

It is here where you can begin to conceptualize and co-create a preferred future. I first provide you with the analogy that has been used before, regarding the seperate “silo’s” of education, health care, social service organizations. These entities could include faith-based, volunteer based groups (rotary, optimists, shriners etc.), or those in which professionals are paid typically through government supported agenices…unemployment, workers safety and insurance board (WSIB or ‘worker’s comp.’) or Social Assistance (Welfare) Programs. These tend to operate in more seperated and at times, competetive fashion than to collaborate or operate under one ‘roof’ or mandate.

In competing for limited resources, there is a ‘dis-incentive’ to work together. It could be compared to two canvassers, going door to door to solicit for their cause, hoping they get to the door (and the donations) before the other gets there. The intent is often driven by the orientation, and the orientation tends to be very narrow focused. Few health care professionals are appreciating, to the degree they should, that education acquirement is a significant determinant of health. It also may be seen as competition, that if more money were to be spent on education, that would leave less money available to support ongoing salary raises, or simply more health care workers to lighten an already over-burdened work force. In the simplest of terms, if education attainment and knowledge transfer were optimized there would be less need for health care professionals, and perhaps that should be the first approach to resolving the shortage of health care professionals. Decrease the need for them, recupe some of the money that is “lost” to health care, then all can be rewarded, the education sector, the health care sector and the social service sector.

Having worked in and researching in all three sectors,…I hold this as valuable insight, we must take the pro-active and preventive approach, first and foremost…it only makes economic sense. We must also, take a very hard look at the obvious…we cannot afford, nor is it ethical to continue on our current path,…it is economically and ecologically, not sustainable.

This is not just about sacrifice…it is about being forward thinking…and moral in our decision making about how we are going to approach living. We have been willing to make some sacrifices in many ways of enhancing the lived experiences of our children, in the developing countries. That is what all the football, soccer fields, the ice and hockey rinks, and baseball diamonds and dance classes have been about. We have paid for and chauffered in increasing numbers, in order to enrich our childrens lives and support their dreams of a positive future. It has been apparent though, for some time, we need to think on a global scale, to consider the environment, and the economic considerations of an over-whelming shift to an aging population,…and limited resources and human resources that is quickly becoming apparent before the “eye of the storm” or the great “tsunami” hits the shore. (just as Katrina was out at sea plenty of days before the “big arrival”, we can predict this potential disaster and the path it is going to take). WE cannot rationalize this away in any moral or ethical context, we are destined to leave a legacy, it all depends on us, as to whether that will be a positive legacy, or a devastating one!

The first ethical consideration and the actions taken, should be personal accountability for our own health. Healthy Living, is a Social Justice mandate pure and simple. To engage in behavoiurs that are risky, and would later require a publically supported health care system to “fix us” “rehab us” or cure us of something that was preventable,…cannot be justifiable on any moral or ethical position.

People make up the instituitons of Health Care, Education and Social Services. If you are a member of any of these sectors, this message is about you, but not only, ‘about you’. For the sake of future generations, please contemplate this message, and become an advocate for community development and primary health care as it is truly defined and addressed on this site. Become the social justice advocate you know you long to be, blog, contibute or comment here on this site or any of the New Paradigm Network, and sense that transformative living communities need to lead us to a preferred future.

Yours in Wholeness, Healing, Health and Well-being,

Dave

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 9:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.