Primary Health Care

“Whose minding the mint”…this was a phrase that I remember from years ago, and I think it may be the title of a comedy (movie) in the early seventies about an unfortunate fellow who mistakenly “watches” $50,000 go down a “garberator” and plans a scheme to sneak into the “mint” where he works to print replacements. As the story progresses there are a number of “characters” added to the mix…all of who are so defined as needed  to do the many jobs of “pulling off” such a feat.

Well we as tax-payers and citizens who deserve the best representation possible for government of our trusted dollars (which a metaphor of “the mint” could apply) have been subject to mis-management of funds and felt as though large sums of money are going down the drain…for much a party’s term in office…while approaching election time…it is as if more additional money get printed from out of nowhere. The question comes to mind is who are these characters, invited to share in some of the “extra money” and are the best investments possible been supported…in the outlay of cash prior to election time.

Have we witnessed true, unadulterated reform of our health care system…is Primary Health Care going to be realized…any where close to the recommendations of the Romanow and Kirby reports of 5 years ago?

IF there is the interest in examining once again the principles of Primary Health Care, i provide them here:

1. Equitable and timely accessibility
2. Public Participation through Community Development Princples
3. Inter-sectoral and Trans-disciplinary Collaboration
4. Health  Promotion, Illness and Injury Prevention
5. Affordable, advantageous and appropriate Technology

So as you listen to candidates…and consider your future and that of your children and your children’s children…do you see evidence or hear a convincing commitment to the above principles. Do the actions and intent of politicians spell “positive transformative change”?

Carry a torch of advocacy for our societies marginalized groups…single mom’s, all children, especially those living in poverty, the seniours and elderly, new Canadians and First Peoples…all of us, really, for we are the greater community…the citizens that government should represent and strengthen.

BE wise, BE  well,

Dave

Many work places, I am certain, will be “a-buzz”, with discussions about the new Michael Moore documentary, Sicko. Whether completly accurate or not,…it is sure to “stir” more than a few “bee-hives”. If ever we needed…a “Bee-in-our-bonnets”…it is now. As in my many other peripheral sites, postings and bolgs…we have no time left to waste. WE are at a critical cross-roads…spanning a very wide “highway” that is paved with “ill-intentions” attached to our health and well-being. If anything the illumination from the film will be “spot-lighting” the “ill-effects” of increasing evidence that Health (and Wellness for that matter) is considered a Commodity by many…who see the Baby-Boomers as the biggest economic windfall imaginable. It has been one of the major reasons few in power to transform Health Care has not been interested forwarding the Prevention or Health Promotion agenda…there is just far too much money to be exploited out of an industry driven system. Big Pharma, essentially has share-holders…as does all the “medical-supply-companies”…and essentially all health care professionals are “stake-holders”…as well as far too many are both “Share-holders” and “Stake-holders”. As the film has presented…many politicians pockets are lined with “industry” money…so too are many “health care professionals” who should under an ethical mandate “first-do no harm”, but so not see their practice as “unethical”…if they undermine other programs and other professionals that are orientated to Primary Health Care.

With not one but two Advanced Practice Degree’s in Primary Health Care (PHC), I should know something about Primary Health Care and Community Development. There are incredible “invisible barriers” that prevent me from practicing to my full scope of practice…and practice what I know best (PHC). I can neither publish or talk to political leaders about what I know and what has happened to me personally. I can not even write an article…or be included in an article that has been published…regarding the barriers that exist for Advanced Practitioners of Nursing. I know there are other disciplines that feel much the same frustration and discouragement…as the status quo…is maintained by the policy makers of Health Care Policy…(essentially they are politicians, many of whom have law degrees…and alot to power).

So In short…you would have to sit down with me in Private…to get an entire take of M.M.’s new film. I will not be publishing “prematurely” so to speak….the books are at least half written…I get a new feeling everyday about which one should be published first….should it be academic/educational/professional…perhaps I would be sabotaging my Academic career…if I were to release a “tell-all” to the public press.

You will have to stay tuned…for the date of release…of the book…or will it be my own documentary. As you view the Yoga video made very amateurishly (and with no rehearsal)…I may soon be bold enough to recruit them into a bigger project. Perhaps it would be fun to take suggestions as to the Short-and-Sweet title that could be a response/re-buttle to “Sicko”.

BE wise, BE well, BE “well” intentioned,

Dave

There are many convergent realities that are suggesting that we begin now, to do things differently. It is believed by many that we have come to the most significant cross-roads, the world has ever faced. One of the key realities that has been with us, is the seperation that is felt between the generations. Long referred to as the Generation Gap, it stands to reason that we all want the same thing, we just are approaching the advancements of technology on different ends of the spectrum….and with far too much anxiety…too little appreciation of one another’s gifts and talents. What is obvious is that the youngest generation holds the greatest competence in terms of technology, but may be experiencing “virtual” relationships that substitute for real tangible (and physical) connection with others of this planet. It has been long demonstrated that growth is impaired when there is not human touch, and ‘humane’ nurturance. We have not enough appreciation of where the “wisdom” lies, and how we tap into a wealth of knowledge and insight. If only the most seasoned populations would recognize the benefit of learning how to access the world of knowledge…while the youngest among us could learn so much from those that have spent many more years “experiencing” life. This is the number one greatest potential to realize peace, greater understanding and the means to come to terms with the reality that our world can not move forward from a platform that favours one generation over another. I call this important concept, “intergenerational collaboration”. The success of the Social Integration Model rests primarily on the facilitation of all being recognized as having valuable things to bring to the table. Please contact me if you wish to know more about how we can realize a new era,…how we CAN co-create a preferred future.

BE Wise, BE well,

Dave

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

We often relate to the concept of community as the place in which we live. Community can be, in fact should be expanded beyond the context of  “place”.  As we apply “beyond the box” thinking, recognizing that we are all connected, (if not meta-physically, then by technology) we through open-source knowledge transfer, can help the greater global community, if there is the ways and means to reach the recipient of our compassion. At one time you would have to join the “peace corp” and travel (many times at your own expense) to a developing country, to lend a hand, or to provide needed supplies and health care. Now, with collaboration, with those in the country (who are connected via cell phone and where there is electricity and internet service) one, through sharing information or funding, can be that important advocate and vehicle of empowerment. There is often an organizational entity that may help facilitate such, and it is worth investigating that organizations mandates and actual commitments to avoid being ‘administratively top-heavy’. More funds, more hands and more work should reach the cause they represent as a moral and ethical mandate.

I provide here a portal to an organization and a crew who is out to change our world, please emmers yourself in their online offerings, and sense this is a community in which we all should belong.

Thank you worldchanging.com team

Dave

When going for an eye exam as a kid, as in most childhood experiences, I longed to hear “praise” or acceptance, and that I was “perfect”. My interest in hearing “no cavities” from the dentist had even greater emotional investment, (to this day, the sound and vibration of “drilling” puts me in a very uncomfortable “state”). Now to hear that I was maintaining 20/20 vision in my right eye was at least a partial cause for celebration,…(at least my right half was perfect). I used to absorb all comments heard when I was younger about being “left brained” versus “right brained” as something that could help explain why I was so different than anyone else (or so was my perception). The puzzlement back then (at least till I was about ten) was, if I was ‘right-brained’ as reflected by my imagination, creativity and brilliance (I cleaved to this word the most), why was my Left eye, the imperfect one, was there a connection? (What a silly notion, you may suggest).

Now to get to the point of this post, I was also very much into futuristic thinking…drawing futuristic cars, and robots, (anyone remember the puppet animated show, “super-car” or “Lost in space”). I used to draw the robot and chant “does not compute”, “does not compute” before the home computer was introduced, as did many of my friends. (One halloween contest in which I had won for best cosutme, I turned myself into the Robot, from head to toe… anyone else?) There is more to forcasting or predicting the future than what technology is going to offer. Star trek brought us “the communicator” and now we are beyond that with the “blackberry” and other video, MP3 and phone-all-in-one’s and there are going to be “nano” technology, potentially implants by choice, “chips” for the right-brained that will be different than the implantable chips for the left-brained, potential to “stimulate” more creativity for the left-brained (to enjoy and humour themselves), and modulator capacity to alter the emotional state, when too much ‘right-brain’ becomes overwhelming.

So yes I’m talking “beyond” the 20/20 concept of vision perfection. I am using the term like others are to be a forcast paradigm. What will our world be like, our experiences (and our potentially simulated and/or stimulated experiences be like)…for the year 2020. Beside the significant technological advances, there will be significant shifts in the social sphere, education, and health care. The most important concept we need to grasp right now, with the greatest sense of immediacy is that we need to integrate these seperate
“silo’s “, once and for all. The technology has been in place for a long time now, to make it possible. It is long over-due. It is time, to solve some of the most significant challenges of the future…today. We need to make “Social Integration” real …today, not leave it as a forgotten futurist’s projection, without laying the foundation for this evolution to occur.

R&D for technology is recieving the bulk of the billions spent, and the bulk of attention, recruitment is competitive for the creative thinkers and innovators, to work in the technology sector. I consider this to be a huge neglect, will be a sad regret, from a human rights stand point and has ethical implications as we regretfully get caught up on enhancing artificial intellegience at the expense of human potential, human health and life enrichment. The bulk of the populations do not have a voice (children, elderly and the poor), and do not have money to pay for gadgetry for their kitchens, (if they have a kitchen of middle-class America standards, at all) no less “enrich” their lives through communication and availibility of health care, information, and health care and socialization resources. What will be the most unethical of practices of all, is that both the technology to enhance our lives (permanently rid us of depression, or replace faulty or lifestyle impacted organs) and to ‘rejuvenate’ the aging body, will be available to only the richest of our societies.

In projection of what is possible for all to enjoy, we can make the “shifts” in paradigms now, not wait to see if a paradigm shift evolves. Health Care, education and social service sectors need to be working together on this,…but in partnership with corporations who have always been the greatest benfactor of emerging technology and human potential. Time to ramp up the investment in “humanistic” potential. What can corporations do to encourage and support, positive “humanistic transformation”? In that they are the benfactors of enhanced employee physical and mental health, and when they engage in continuing education, as well become engaged in a legacy of social and familial contribution…they, under a mandate of public accountability and social responsibility should have programs in place which their employees and their families can participate in, and reach out to others, the vulnerble in their community. Projects of “human outreach” is essential, but also outreach to rescue and preserve our natural environment…essentially we want to “live WELL, and that takes a clean, safe and healthy environment. (see an great example here)

A Paradigm, simply put is a way of thinking or an ‘orientation’.  There is clearly and orientation of our current health system that is at the very least, undermining the empowerment of the public, that our “public health care system” is to be serving. Further, we are not perpetuating wellness, but continue to patch people up, or rescue them form there plight, and too little is done on the prevention side of the ‘care’ in health care. We will want to and need to invest in rescue, rehabilitation and resolution of acute risk or insult the physical and mental health…it is the way that we go about it and who is in charge. For decades and century’s in the making before current infrastructures of health care came to be, professionals have led the development and modes of delivery of health care. If we are to be honest and forthright as to what really  is the issue at hand, there is much political rangling,  leveraging and turfism that undermines health.  It is  long past due time that the  professions advocate for the public , give them voice and empowerment and choice, and grant them the ethic  and social justice mandate that should be obvious the right and potential to afford to choose which care provider they wish to partner with.

What are your thoughts…in favour of the status quo, or a supprter of change?

Please post our opinion,

Dave

We will provide you with 5 simple principles of community development while you can expand your understanding of these principles by visiting this site and this one for starters. We encourage others to bring their insights, articles, texts, or websites to this site for sharing, contributing in building this vision, one that targets bringing social justice on a global scale.

In quick reflection, principles of community development are inclusive of but not limited to:

1. Connective processes- could be individuals, families, community members, partnering agencies, those in health, social service and education sectors, service organization, faith communities, and municipal, provincial and national governments.
2. Collaboration- once coming together, setting personal or organizational agendas, turfism and/or territorial tendencies aside, all parties agree to participate for the greater good of society. A “shared-care”, and shared governace structure needs to be the mandate for all sectors, this demands a re-oroentation of current health care hierachies.
3. Empowerment- this can only come with equity, education and emancipation for all individuals and groups in society. Barriers must be removed that have been constructed through gender and race bias, religious domination of others from different cultures, new immigrants and those living in poverty must be prioritized, for removal of the many barriers to their empowerment to be realized.
4. Advocacy- All professionals and persons in government must recognize the nature of their existence, to serve the public. The most marginalized in society, those you struggle with language or literacy issues, those who are living with a disability or their caregiver and those of advancing age and potential infirmities, must have a voice, and a support system, that enacts or engages “the system” on behalf of those less fortunate.
5. Organizational actions- governmental action must be timely and consistent. This includes al levels of government, municipal, provincial (state) and Federal. Corporations and businesses must act on their social responsibility and public accoutability mandates. Corporations, are the collective power that can bring social justice, or leave a legacy of exploitation and lack of citizenry.

Welcome to a site, that provides insight. The World Health Organization (WHO) nearly 30 years ago, began to define “primary health care“. We will soon recognize the twenty years anniversary of expansion of the vision of equitable health across the social and economic sectors, through the writing and release of the Ottawa Charter of Health Promotion. We share the passion of many to see social justice come to the world in our lifetime. We can leave a positive legacy, if we strengthen the commitment to the principles of primary health care and community development. Please see the page that further describes these principles, here.