jueves, noviembre 17, 2005

Sour times and words and Equity (Reflections on... II)

There is a modernization process going on in the healthcare industry in the public sector in Chile.
Far away from average"practices" the Chilean healthcare model is moving ahead in the future, far from other places and countries.
Use of the Internet, creation of an electronic single card record using the ID number to compile healthcare information from different sources. The UK has an ongoing project in this regard using and uniting GP work, clinics, hospitals and other health-care actors and stakeholders. So Chile is on the right path.

BUT
then we hear someone from the US explaining, and rather than explaining, lecturing on the aspects to have in mind when rolling over a system, and they sounded, they are actually, so condescending.
The US with the worst health system existing in developed countries.... Not my words, but you just have to go over the news about their system and you will find out.

Some history and...
During the 80's the US had inside its borders a very "socialist"-type kind of government or role better said. Free education, free basic healthcare, coupons from social security, etc. With the upcoming of Friedman's theory, the State started to become weaker and weaker and the so-called efficiency attributed to the private sector was called with screams. Hence, gradually, state owned companies became disenfranchised, left to their own will, it was necessary to let the free market and the market forces act and do their doing. The survival of the fittest, that was the implementation of an economic Darwinism seeing from afar.

The problem was, as it happens with powers and empires, it was necessary to export the model to the backyard. This was going to be the panacea. Then privatisation became in vogue. Neo-liberalism took out its head: Genesis of dismantling of States in LA countries.
Thus, inequity and poor distribution of wealth was instituted.... almost legally.
Sour times, sour words.
Then also, urban parrotly-repeated myths:
(and here we go):
freedom to choose
free market
forces of the market
private is good and efficient, and safe and secure
public is bad (for children, elders, and women, and for our pockets of course)
Globalization (the concept) was coming. Internet used as another armed extension of all this.

click!

To be part of the World village meant to be part of the game. The game is ruled by economics. So you either play or leave. Of course this refers to, first, economic powers, then decision makers, and some other dreamers. And what we are dreaming now in this globalized and connected world is Global solidarity and communication...
Yes, that is the dream.
Pundits will say that yes, that it is undeniable that there is more wealth in the world, that people are connected, have more access to products from other areas, that we are all one. Yup, right.
Globalization was, is also translated into standards. Standards for tenders and bidding processes (also part of free market and blah blah), for products, for exports, duties and taxes, all which could be subject to regulation and norms and standards.....

Another dream: when we all respect the rules ... yup, beautiful dreams...
I am not really sure whether production, production per se, is the solution to the problems.
Should the core be human beings, then production could be the engine fostering progress which is
i have to admit to my waking hours, a subjective term.
Humans are in the central place of everything. Now it seems to be money and market and power, and something so big and overwhelming that I am not able, perhaps, to grasp.
However, human beings should be at the center of which everything revolvs... everything.
Production for the sake of production when not accompanied with human touch is out of the reality that matters. Otherwise all will be a rat race in a nutshell.
And there we go with free market, patents, property.
These are days my friend when the right of the market and economic powers and private property is greater than the right to live, the right of human beings.

Milestones:
Man arrived to the moon. This is a moment of the new dawn in the history of man and civilization.
Discovery of vaccines.
Discovery of freedom.
Berlin's wall.
The end of the Soviet Union.
September 11....
No more Saddam

Hmm interesting. So what are we to do with that now. With thoset many short-lived, short-aged milestones, eenie minnie miny milestones?
The awakenings of nature and weather... There is the generalized fear of
the pandemia
of bird flu outbreak... hey
you got the patent, you got the medication, so if we need that to survive
i think, i have the feeling that
we are entitled to simply copy the formula and produce generic medication to solve that
hmm
little nuance.
And there you go, that would be a real milestone..
What do you reckon of ir Mr R?

Anyways, i look at the window and see no heroes but loads of them, loads...


Also sprach Marroncito, :-)

PS: Sorry for not writing before. Went to Mar del Plata to take James from jail. _Yup, he was the one asking a hard question to the chicken-hawk cowboy.

b.

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