Bioethics - Medical, Ethical and Legal Perspectives
There’s evidence that implementing the four medical ethics principles may be challenging especially in low income country contexts with extreme resource scarcity and limited capacity to facilitate deliberations on the different ethical dilemmas.... These challenges can partly be explained by the social, economic, and political contexts in which the decisions are made, as well as the limited time, training and guidance to facilitate ethical decision making. Based on current literature, and using the example of bedside rationing; this chapter synthesizes the challenges clinicians face when operationalizing the four principle; identifying the opportunities to address them. We suggest that clinicians’ ability to implement the four principles are constrained by meso‐ and macro‐level decision making as well as their lack of training, explicit guidelines, and peer support. To ameliorate this situation, current efforts to strengthen the clinicians’ capacity to make ethical decisions should be complimented with developing of context relevant guidelines for ethical clinical decision making. The renewed global commitment to the sustainable development goals and universal healthcare coverage should be recognized as an opportunity to leverage resources and champion the integration of equity and justice as a core value in resource allocation at the bedside, meso-, macro- and global levels.
more
Overview.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest crisis facing the world, but unless humans release their grip on nature, it won’t be the last, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which includes a new experimental index on human progress that takes into acco...unt countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.
The report lays out a stark choice for world leaders - take bold steps to reduce the immense pressure that is being exerted on the environment and the natural world, or humanity’s progress will stall.
more
How safe is our hospital sanitation? An example from a public hospital
This report shows that increased domestic revenues can and will cover only part of the necessary SDG budget spending of the LIDCs. Achieving the SDGs in the LIDCs will also require increases of both Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Private Development Assistance (PDA) to reach aggregate lev...els of SDG-directed development aid on the order of US$300-400 billion USD per year
more
La question des effets du changement climatique sur les hommes et les femmes a été définie par la Commission de la condition de la femme comme une de celles qui doivent davantage retenir l’attention. Les normes, rôles et relations relatifs au genre (voir l’Encadré 1) sont d’importants fac...teurs déterminant la vulnérabilité et la capacité d’adaptation aux effets du changement climatique sur la santé (voir l’Encadré 2). Les femmes et les hommes sont vulnérables face aux effets des événements climatiques extrêmes non seulement du point de vue biologique, mais aussi du fait de leurs rôles et responsabilités sociaux distincts (Easterling, 2000 ; Wisner et al., 2004) qui peuvent varier mais se retrouvent dans toutes les sociétés. Les femmes doivent souvent supporter des charges supplémentaires en cas d’événements climatiques extrêmes du fait des rôles et responsabilités qu’elles sont censées assumer en s’occupant de la famille, alors que les hommes de leur côté supporteront des charges supplémentaires du fait de leur rôle économique.
more
Cambodia drafted and adopted the National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction 2014-2018 in 2014. This plan finalized the required policies and legal processes to strengthen DRM in Cambodia. It also focused on capacity building at national and sub-national levels and provided dedicated resources ...for strengthening the NCDM and the Sub-National Committees for Disaster Management. Cambodia’s legislature then passed the Law on Disaster Management in June 2015. This legal framework for disaster management assigns legally binding roles and responsibilities, establishes institutions, and assists with the allocation of resources and coordination. NCDM is Cambodia’s lead government agency for emergency preparedness and relief. The NCDM provides the overall leadership of the Plan of Action for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) coordination in Cambodia. Cambodia has adopted the Cambodia Red Cross (CRC) as the primary partner for relief operations.
more
Scientists have known for more than half a century that patients could develop resistance to the drugs used to treat them. Alexander Fleming, who is credited with creating the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928, cautioned of the impending crisis while accepting his Nobel prize in 1945: “There ...is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” Since then antibiotics have proved one of the most effective interventions in human medicine. Sadly, the overuse and misuse of this precious resource have brought us to a global crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). To address this crisis nearly seven decades after Fleming’s lecture the first UN general assembly meeting on drug resistance bacteria was convened in September 2017.
more
The goal of the United States Government for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Mozambique is to support country efforts to achieve epidemic control by 2020 through evidence-based policies and interventions to drive progress and save
lives. This document details PEPFAR's op...erational plan in Mozambique.
more
Trials (2017) 18:152, DOI 10.1186/s13063-017-1881-z
Developing countries face disastrous healthcare setbacks, hunger and huge international debt as covid-19’s ‘final wave’
Cities can help nations achieve their Paris Agreement commitment by supporting the implementation of transformational actions to increase the supply of renewable energy, improve building energy efficiency, increase access to affordable, low carbon transport options, and change consumption patterns. ...
Seventy per cent of C40 cities report that they are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Cities need to adapt and improve their resilience to climate hazards that may impact them, both in the short-term and in future climate change scenarios. Cities are already leading the way with ambitious plans to accelerate action on climate change. With more political will, community support and collaboration, cities can make an even greater contribution to securing a climate safe future.
more
“Effective Altruism” — What it is, how philanthropic foundations use it and what are its risks and side-effects
An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems
As more frequent droughts and floods threaten the global food supply, humans are increasing their demands on water and land,... The New York Times reports.
Data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report:
• 500 million people are living in areas that are becoming desert.
• Soil is depleted at 10X-100X the rate it’s being formed.
• More than 10% of the global population is undernourished.
Major threats include the risk of “multi-breadbasket failure”—simultaneous food crises on several continents—and migration triggered by food shortages.
Good News/Bad News: Catastrophe can be avoided, but it would require massive changes to agriculture, food systems and behavior.
A Key Action: Eat less meat. Cattle production is driving deforestation, consuming huge amounts of water, generating methane and causing other impacts, notes Nature.
more
A MANUAL FOR WASH IMPLEMENTERS, BOTSWANA
Sightsavers | Department for International Development | The International Trachoma Initiative | Children Without Worms | WaterAid | WASH Advocates | Center for Global Safe Water, Emory University | CARE USA