Medical technology sans political borders,politics and vested interests- a feasible and achievable goal
By medical technology is meant the following in pursuit of restoring,preserving or augmenting human health.
1) accesible knowledge that can be applied by individuals, befitting their aptitude and means, in pursuit of their health related desired outcomes.
2) drugs in their widest definition including foods and derivatives.
3) any artificial device that interacts with the human body to achieve a desired medical outcome.
4)new skills pioneered by medical practitioners and the repertoire of existing skills and techniques practised by individual practitioners or teams of health providers.
By political borders is meant any administrative domain that restricts, controls and modifies medical technology in a belief that it knows best what the "subjects" need. This may include nation states but not necessarily.
This writing will not elaborate on what politics mean other than to state that it does not refer exclusively to organised politics.
"Vested interests " includes commercial interests of private entities or transnational corporations as well as the innocuous sounding but not so benign inertia of practitioners and institutions and health networks when it comes to change that has the potential of a net benefit.
As per the WHO definition, health is state of complete physical,mental, social and spiritual well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Obviously it stands to reason that there are both objective and subjective components of unhealthy states,call it disease or infirmity. By and large the so called " hard" science of medicine is centred on the objective components of physical or organic disorders,at least thus far.Added to this is the recent phenomenon of bio statistical techniques applied to clinical randomised controlled trials and heralded as "evidence " based medicine.These have been the twin engines propelling the school of reductionist western "scientific" medicine to the bully pulpit of the international health ministry and absolute monarchy of medical "governance" and clinical "policing".And what the track record of that ministry and monarchy has been is captured only partly by the dismal soft statistics available for world wide health related outcomes.
There have been few governments that have even attempted to provide a comprehensive solution to allow a level playing field for the flow of information relating to medical technology as defined in the above paragraphs,the few that have, have fallen prey to the inevitable overdrive in terms of their remit and perceived infallibility of their coterie of pundits. It becomes more of a case of healthcare being perceived as a dole to be handed to the poor peasants.Vested interests form faster than moss can build up in an unkempt ditch of water.
What then is the possible solution to ensure that some of the gains of modern helath related technology percolate more efficiently to us all.
The first must be a democratic mindset in all the governance structures across the globe with respect to trying to address the health needs of individual human beings This of course is a political discourse which is beyond the remit of this endeavour. But this much can be said that unless a dialogue can be initiated in all earnest and honesty among the stakeholders concerned ie the consumers or patients and their representatives, the manufacturers of technologies as described, and the practitioners and of course the governance structures that profess to oversee all for the good of all.
1) accesible knowledge that can be applied by individuals, befitting their aptitude and means, in pursuit of their health related desired outcomes.
2) drugs in their widest definition including foods and derivatives.
3) any artificial device that interacts with the human body to achieve a desired medical outcome.
4)new skills pioneered by medical practitioners and the repertoire of existing skills and techniques practised by individual practitioners or teams of health providers.
By political borders is meant any administrative domain that restricts, controls and modifies medical technology in a belief that it knows best what the "subjects" need. This may include nation states but not necessarily.
This writing will not elaborate on what politics mean other than to state that it does not refer exclusively to organised politics.
"Vested interests " includes commercial interests of private entities or transnational corporations as well as the innocuous sounding but not so benign inertia of practitioners and institutions and health networks when it comes to change that has the potential of a net benefit.
As per the WHO definition, health is state of complete physical,mental, social and spiritual well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Obviously it stands to reason that there are both objective and subjective components of unhealthy states,call it disease or infirmity. By and large the so called " hard" science of medicine is centred on the objective components of physical or organic disorders,at least thus far.Added to this is the recent phenomenon of bio statistical techniques applied to clinical randomised controlled trials and heralded as "evidence " based medicine.These have been the twin engines propelling the school of reductionist western "scientific" medicine to the bully pulpit of the international health ministry and absolute monarchy of medical "governance" and clinical "policing".And what the track record of that ministry and monarchy has been is captured only partly by the dismal soft statistics available for world wide health related outcomes.
There have been few governments that have even attempted to provide a comprehensive solution to allow a level playing field for the flow of information relating to medical technology as defined in the above paragraphs,the few that have, have fallen prey to the inevitable overdrive in terms of their remit and perceived infallibility of their coterie of pundits. It becomes more of a case of healthcare being perceived as a dole to be handed to the poor peasants.Vested interests form faster than moss can build up in an unkempt ditch of water.
What then is the possible solution to ensure that some of the gains of modern helath related technology percolate more efficiently to us all.
The first must be a democratic mindset in all the governance structures across the globe with respect to trying to address the health needs of individual human beings This of course is a political discourse which is beyond the remit of this endeavour. But this much can be said that unless a dialogue can be initiated in all earnest and honesty among the stakeholders concerned ie the consumers or patients and their representatives, the manufacturers of technologies as described, and the practitioners and of course the governance structures that profess to oversee all for the good of all.
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