After two years of medical school and miserable weather, we decided it was time to take our newly found skills to a warmer climate. In summer 2015, we spent three weeks volunteering in Underberg, a rural town in the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. Our time there consisted of school outreach for children from the […]
Category: Global health
Tom Jefferson: Happy birthday Ombudsman
The institution of the European Ombudsman celebrated its first 20 years of activity with a party for staff and all those who have and still are contributing to its work. The shindig was held in the European Parliament. In the words of the current Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, the Ombudsman’s function “was born out of the […]
Mihail Călin: Protests on the streets of Bucharest—”We want hospitals, not cathedrals!
Twelve days have passed since fireworks lit the soundproofing at the Colectiv club in Bucharest, unleashing a deadly combination of fire and toxic fumes over hundreds of concert goers. The death toll has now reached 48, mostly young people, and is likely to increase, given that around 20 others are in critical condition in hospitals. […]
DFID should put long term research at the heart of development
The 2015 autumn spending review launched by the chancellor George Osborne, aims to find ways to reduce the UK government budget by a further £20 billion. While the UK aid budget is protected from such cuts, heightened public awareness of fiscal tightening, and scrutiny from the likes of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), […]
The WHO financing dialogue: global health leadership needs to be paid for
“WHO must re-establish it’s pre-eminence as the guardian of global public health; this will require significant changes throughout WHO with the understanding that this includes both the Secretariat and the Member States.” [1] Since the Ebola outbreak shocked the world the functioning of WHO has been the subject of much attention. The director general has […]
Rebecca Stout: Refugees and their right to access healthcare in the UK
Over the past few months it would be very difficult to have missed the news stories reporting on the Syrian refugee crisis. Civil war has now continued in the country for more than four years and the World Health Organization states that there are currently “12.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, with more than […]
Global Health Curriculum group: A changing world and what it means for medical training
This month the BMA released a report on the need for pre and post-graduate medical education and training to adapt in the face of a rapidly “changing world.” We are pleased to see recognition of the need to update postgraduate competencies. However, as doctors in training who are dedicated to the integration of global health into current […]
Sarah Walpole: Rain in the desert—a public health emergency that you might not have heard about
You might not have heard about the humanitarian emergency that began to unravel in Western Sahara last week. The Saharawi people live in exile in one of the world’s harshest climates. They cope well with dry desert heat, choosing to stay inside during the hottest part of the day and sometimes covering themselves with blankets […]
Richard Smith: Health research when carbon matters more than money
As I write this, the strongest hurricane ever detected in the Western Hemisphere is approaching the coast of Mexico, where my son lives. It may have nothing to do with climate change (or disruption, as I prefer to call it), but it probably does. Recently we heard that the permafrost is thawing faster than ever and […]
Alexandra Caulfield: Mental health in Africa—challenges and progress since 2008
Poor provision “We have 77 psychiatrists, most of them in Nairobi. Quite a big chunk of them are doing private practice and only for those people who can afford their services. In fact, in Kenya, we don’t have a psychiatrist working at the level of the community full time. We don’t have that kind of […]