Last week about 30 of us spent 36 hours in The Hague discussing whether we could produce a new definition of health—and eventually deciding that we couldn’t. But we had an interesting time, and I concluded that I would think of health not as a state or a destination but rather as a journey. The […]
The team and I have a new project. We are embarking on a multi-country study that is looking at the Impact of Measles Eradication Activities on Immunization Services and Health Systems. To that end we hosted a meeting with the key stakeholders in Bangladesh on immunization activities (EPI, Expanded Programme on Immunization) to include multiple […]
Last week the British Medical Association (BMA) published an updated statement on the international migration of health workers. In the BMA’s view individuals have the right to migrate for personal and professional reasons. As Michael Clemens writes in his paper for the Center for Global Development from August 2009, health workers, educated and trained at […]
A few years ago I lived in a flat with a dear friend Hannah, who like me is a collector of junk and disastrous at keeping things such like wires, lids, buttons, remote controls where they should be kept. For example, I would ask: “What does this cable do?” Hannah: “No idea, but maybe we […]
You may be aware that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), BMJ Editor-in-Chief Fiona Godlee, and the Campaign for Greener Healthcare hosted a meeting of health professionals at the RCN on Saturday as part of the Wave demonstration. Here’s my contribution: “The time is now. As health professionals we have a duty of care, a […]
Some three million children in Britain are obese, and treating childhood obesity is far from easy. To have any chance of responding adequately to the epidemic of obesity we need to find, firstly, a treatment that works and, secondly, a way to scale it up so that it can be delivered efficiently. Both problems are hard, […]
I feel as if I have been in some kind of altered state since I arrived in Freetown ten weeks ago. After an extended high, where I was bursting with ideas and determination, one day this week I suddenly ran out of steam and ground to a halt. […]
At the weekend we attended the most profound and moving event for health progress that we can remember. This took place at the Royal College of Nursing – founded in 1916 in the middle of the most awful war of the last century, and now at the heart of change in which nurses are in […]
Six years ago the UK government made an important reversal in its policy towards HIV/AIDS treatment. Whereas previously the UK approach was to fund the building of general health care infrastructure, Hilary Benn, the then development secretary, announced that supporting drug treatment for the millions infected by HIV/AIDS in Africa was a priority. “We should […]
Perhaps I should have realised from the title, but when I began to read The Book of Dead Philosophers I didn’t expect it to be funny. In fact Simon Critchley’s stories of how “190 or so” philosophers died and some of what they said about death is at times hilarious—as well as rich with meaning. Let’s […]