Should Free Healthcare Be Available For Populations In Poverty?

In many countries, like Venezuela, the people there do not have the money to pay for medical treatment if they're sick.  This leaves more of a problem than not having the resources at all because what good is it to have them if the people cannot use them.  Imagine the state of the country if it's that underdeveloped. People don't live in mansions and drive luxurious cars they have small houses some even made of mud and walk most of the places they need to go. In a country where there aren't any ways to make a good living to pay for your own healthcare there should be some way to get treatments if something is wrong. Yes, it's true, in the United States its very obvious that people abuse the privilege but, people in the United States have more opportunities to work than people in Venezuela and other third world countries. There have been cases of people who have died because they did not go and try and get help or medication because they knew they couldn't afford it. This should not even be an option.  If someone is sick they deserve treatment and medication. Reforms were put into effect in Venezuela to improve the amount of care.  This was probably one of the best things that could have happened in Venezuela. The people living there now have a place to go for treatment.  There now should be no reason why a sick person should just die without trying to get help now that they are trying to make it available to them.

Borroto, Radames. "National Training Program for Comprehensive Community Physicians,     Venezuela." Medline. 10.4 (2008): 35-42. Web. 6 Oct. 2011. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21483335>.

Summary:  The article explains how they trained physicians in Venezuela.  Barrio Adentro was a program set up to assure primary health care to the population of an estimated 26 million people.  They established a program to train doctors for public service as well as recruiting students who had no opportunity to receive experience in their University. 

Analysis: This source is credible because it was written by a medical doctor. He was apart of the reform so it is first hand information. The source was also a journal entry and it was found on google scholar so it's more reliable than a website. It's relevant to this blog post because it talks about the people who need healthcare and how they have established a reform to help.  This also relates because it shows that they are trying to help the people that can't afford healthcare by giving them places to come to get treatment.

Is Good Healthcare Important in a Country?

When people are trying to decide where to live they think about many different factors.  Is this place going to be a good place to raise a family? Am I going to be able to find a job to support myself or my family? Is it within a friendly environment? Are there resources available to take care of me and my family? Many things impact whether people live in a certain country, state, town etc. Healthcare is definitely one of those factors. If a country does not have the resources to take care of their citizens when they get sick then the population is going to suffer. Healthcare is a huge part of a population.  People get sick everyday and if there aren’t any ways to take care of them then people are not going to want to live there. There’s more too it though than just having the resources available.  As a citizen you have to think about how the government in that population handles there healthcare system.  The treatments, medicines, doctors etc. need to be not only there but, accessible.

Starfield, Barbara. "The Importance of Primary Health Care in Health Systems." Primary Health Care Conference. Qatar-EMRO. Qatar, 2008. Speech.

Summary: This talks in detail about the need for primary health care.  It also talks about what is included in primary health care.

Analysis: This source seems very credible because it had a lot of statistics and it was a speech given at a conference for primary healthcare. This source helped because it supported my opinion about healthcare being an important factor in a country. It also gives many details as to why primary healthcare is important.  It’s even more reliable because it talks about multiple countries. 

Will Improvement in Venezuela's Healthcare Persuade Other Countries to Follow in Their Lead?

Guessing that many other third world countries are in the same shape as Venezuela, it’s okay to assume that they are lacking necessary medical resources as well. No country wants to be known as the worst place to reside; similar to people and how no person wants to be seen on their worst days. If another underdeveloped country sees Venezuela growing it’s very likely that they will want to do the same. If they see that Venezuela is getting help from the United States and it’s actually working and making their country a better place for their citizens to live then why wouldn’t they try and get the same help for their people? Many of the countries around Venezuela were having the same issues.  They want to help their people but they do not have the money to provide the resources or care for them.  Neighboring countries like Colombia and Guyana were also having the same healthcare issues.  Research shows that they have made this better.  Of course the level of treatment and available antibiotics are not the same as if you were in the United States but for an underdeveloped country they are doing better than they were in the early 1900’s.  That’s not to say that they are trying to develop because they see Venezuela developing and want to be better than them. It shows that since they see a country of similar caliber doing better they know they can do better as well; that the resources to be able to help their people are attainable.

Gonzalez, Jenny. "The Corruption At The Heart Of Colombia's Healthcare System." Worldcrunch. Worldcrunch, 02 2012. Web. 5 Nov 2012. <http://worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/the-corruption-at-the-heart-of-colombia-039-s-health-care-system/colombia-health-care-corruption-privatization/c1s9688/>.

Summary; This article was focused on the state of healthcare in the past and how it has changed recently in Colombia. They now have healthcare that is accessible to all people.  It demonstrates how unhappy the people that live in Colombia are with the current healthcare system.

Analysis:  As far as I can tell the source is credible.  It seems to have good factual information.  It’s more of an article written for a newspaper in Colombia.  The article was translated to English but it was originally written in Spanish so I would imagine it was written by someone who was experiencing it.  The author also was Hispanic.

Does United States Involvement in Venezuela Impact the U.S.?

Does the United States’ involvement in Venezuela impact the United States? Of course it does.  Everything that the United States decides to be involved in will cause the country to form an opinion on it.  Some people may believe that we shouldn’t be helping them but, then others probably think that it’s a good thing that were doing by helping them. The United States is very fortunate as far as medical advancements and resources. It’s our job to share that with other countries that are in need. How would it make us look if we had a ton of resources, saw a country in need, and didn’t help them? Greedy! We would look greedy. The United States has always been the country that gets involved with everything.  This is good and bad.  When you think of things like war, it would probably be better to not get involved in every small issue that happens in Iraq, or Afghanistan. This puts our country and people in danger when it’s not necessary.  If there is an issue somewhere that doesn’t pose a threat to our country or its citizens then we absolutely should do our best to help better that issue. The United States sending doctors to Venezuela to help improve their healthcare is not causing any sort of threat. In fact since the United States is helping Venezuela out so much now with their healthcare if we ever need a favor it’s very likely that they will return the favor.

Gutierrez, M. "Venezuela." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 07 2012. Web. 4 Nov 2012. <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/venezuela/index.html>.

 

Summary: This article focuses on the United States and their involvement with Venezuela recently.  It gives information on the deals made between Cuba, Venezuela, and The United States in the past.  It also discusses Obama’s foreign policy.

Analysis: This source is credible because it is on the New York Times website. That is a popular newspaper.  Most newspapers are reliable even though they can be biased. There are other current events about Venezuela on their website.  This source gives good insight to what the United States got out of helping Venezuela.  It also showed how Venezuela benefited from the United States help as well as the help that Cuba gave as well.

Does Venezuela's lack of access to healthcare set a precedent for other third world countries?

When looking at the United States we have access to a lot of different resources that may not be available worldwide. Let’s just say the United States is very privileged.  For example, Venezuela is not as developed of a country as the United States.  Many aspects of their culture are different than ours but, let’s focus in on one thing, healthcare.  They do not have as much access to treatment, preventative medicine, doctors, etc. Thinking of a country like this we automatically assume that the countries around them are going to have similar characteristics. When thinking of third world or underdeveloped countries the words that seem to come to mind are underprivileged and poor.  Do people actually know for a fact that is true or do they just infer that other third world countries share these similar traits because of how the United States portrays them? When looking at Venezuela, it’s evident that they do not have the resources to provide the care that their citizens need when it comes to healthcare. They lack doctors with up to date medical knowledge, antibiotics and medicine, and medical facilities.  When the United States realizes this does it makes them think that all other third world countries are like this as well? Yes, we tend to stereotype groups, well in this case countries, by what they have or what they are like.  It’s human instinct. It’s a lot easier to say that all under developed countries lack access to resources and are unable to give their citizens the treatment and attention they need when it comes to healthcare rather than singling out each country individually.  When looking at this issue from this standpoint it is easy to see that Venezuela’s healthcare system has set a precedent for other countries that are similar to it. Even though we all know that every under developed country does not suffer from the same issues within their society it is simple to assume that since they all lack similar resources they are struggling with a majority of the same problems.

 Mcnulty, Caitlin. "A Look at Venezuelan Healthcare." Venezuelanalysis.com. Drupal, 30 2009. Web. 4 Nov 2012. <http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4566>.

Summary: This article talks about Venezuela’s current healthcare and how it affects the people who live there. It also proposes a new healthcare reform to improve Venezuela’s healthcare system.

Analysis:  This source is credible because it has many references to show where she got the information from that she wrote the article with.  People also commented on it and the comments were very positive and in agreement towards what she was saying. This source gave information to support that Venezuela’s healthcare condition was not in a good state.  Since blog post number one was about Venezuela’s lack of healthcare it’s important to give evidence that they actually did lack resources.