The Role Of Health Ngos Health And Social Care Essay

The Role Of Health Ngos Health And Social Care Essay Health care in Nigeria is structured along, and administered through the universal three tiers: the primary level run by the local government, the secondary by the state and the tertiary by the federal government (FMOH 2005). The contribution of Nigerias health sector to the national economy remains poorly defined, and as a result Nigeria was ranked a dismal 187th position among the 191 United Nation member state (WHO 2000).Health care facilities are inadequate in Nigeria (Yohesor 2009) and this includes health centres, personnel and medical equipment. Moreso, the state of existing facilities is often deplorable due to lack of maintenance. As Lee states: A health care system is an organizational framework for the distribution or servicing of the health care needs of a given community. It is a fairly complex system of inter-related elements that contribute to the health of people-in their homes, educational institutions, in work places, the public (social or recreational) and the psychological environments as well as the directly health and health-related sectors. (Lee 2009: 1). However, with the many social and infrastructural problems confronting the country is the pursuit of the politically attractive tertiary health care which, arguably, has remained the only attractive area of the health system, to the detriment of other levels of care. The neglect of Nigerias health care, with special reference to the primary health care system, its maldistribution, will result in an inverted health care pyramid. By implication, rather than produce health for the people, would always have the threat to collapse on itself. According to Asuzu (2003), Nigerias health care system has experienced past reforms, ranging from the traditional health care system that existed in the individual Nigerian communities and the ethnic groups before the era of colonization till date. Though Nigerias health care system is geared towards ensuring availability and accessibility of health care by Nigerians, yet the nations health care remains a major concern. On the other hand, health care reform is the process of improving the performance of existing systems of assuming efficient and equitable responses to future changes. It has also been defined as sustainable, purposeful change aimed at improving the health sector; health care reform is initiated by public or political action, is motivated by dissatisfaction caused by the failure to deliver outcomes and implemented on a sector wide level (Berman 1995). This presupposes that reforms might address the problems of poor quality of care, inefficiencies in the delivery of services, inequalities and limited access to health, level of accountability and insufficient responsiveness to client needs. Globally, it would seem Non-governmental Organizations have undertaken a wide range of functions, including but not limited to, humanitarian assistance, developmental aid, and promotion of human rights and lobbying to protect the environment. In other words, the role of non-governmental (NGOs) might have been seen to expand. Capturing the essence of health NGOs, Gilson states: †¦..humanitarian assistance is assistance given to meet the challenges of a humanitarian crisis, almost always includes provision of some type of healthcare, be it preventive action (such as providing shelter, clean water and sanitary facilities, immunization against epidemics) or management of emergencies (such as injuries from a disaster). Arguably, Nigeria is currently undergoing health sector reform aimed at achieving improved efficiencies in resource utilization, improved quality of health services as well as greater equity of access to health services. Jong-Chan (2002) asserts that given the strong influence they possess, NGOs remain the only sector that can empower the public to demand a stable national health program; NGOs should bring their experiences in health care reform to bear in order to strengthen their unique position in the health care system, independent of both governmental dominance and medical autonomy. In the light of the above assertion, it would seem Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have always been in the forefront of advancing novel ideas, and in encouraging and supporting governments to implement them. At a simple level, NGOs generally represent the voice of the people at all levels- local, national and international, and have taken on roles such as advocacy, education and training (Ogunbekun, 2004:3), and have been active in monitoring and improving what has, or has not, been implemented or achieved. For example, NGOs have been in the front burner in promoting, developing and improving a comprehensive and holistic approach to health care services. For change to happen, it would be necessary to collaborate with the relevant stakeholders in the health sector, whether they work in government, in administration, or as providers of the necessary services, to bring about needed change and improvement; also to ensure the people understand and support the changes which need to be made (Lorgen, 1998). Moreso, health professional associations might be effective in working with health NGOs in improving health care delivery. Often, they seek the advice of health professionals regarding issues around health care, essentially because they know that medical ethics require physicians to provide objective advice on health issues, in the best interests of their patients (Pfeiffer 2003). Health NGOs, together with health professionals, might also employ the skills and experiences that NGOs have garnered in putting information and messages across to the public in such a way that the public is able to understand and this will be necessary in improving health care. The role or value of NGOs in advancing health is hinged on three premises, emerging from the research endeavour of George Washington Universitys Centre for international Health: Individual health and communities socio-economic development are intrinsically linked; Well targeted health promotion activities can contribute not only to better health but can also enhance an individuals social well-being ; Local NGOs whose members are responsive to the communities they serve, are more likely to provide this linkage through fostering community empowerment. Many NGOs are involved in training programmes which is a role they seem to have undertaken at all levels. Therefore, they are well-positioned to assist the relevant government departments in bringing about changes and improvement in health care system (Gilson 2003). It would follow that NGOs should be invited by governments to assist as partners in creation of awareness, mobilization and development of training programmes on health care reforms. Also, health NGOs seem to have the capacity to empower communities to act on their own behalf, equipping people to improve the social and physical environments conducive for healthy lifestyles, and of health advocacy to enable policy makers to recognize and appreciate the necessity for improvements in health care conditions (Starfield 2011). Following the policy statement of World Health Organizations 1978 Alma Ata Conference, also known as the Alma Ata Declaration, which proposed that primary health care (PHC) be adopted for health planning and delivery, emphasizing on equity in health, disease prevention, and a comprehensive strategy to promote individual and community health (Rodriguez 2001), a health education strategy might suggest that within a socio-political context, health education aims to increase individuals consciousness of his or her health status, and the causes and determinants of that status, thereby increasing the possibility for positive action. As Asuzu (2003) points out †¦ NGOS act as catalyst by encouraging the various departments concerned with health to become actively involved in reform exercises†¦ This would be effective if different NGOs work in synergy. For instance, in addition to health NGOs, there is involvement of other relevant NGOs such as womens NGOs that concentrate on activities to improve the status of women and development NGOs whose centre of interest or activity is particularly on issues around development. Health NGOs, arguably, are dependent on their mandate or project charter which is in tandem with the overall programmes of a health care system within which they operate. According to Ohanyido (2012), the roles of health NGOs are summarized below: †¢ work to ensure that the health services are efficient, effective, and accessible. †¢ work within the health system to ensure that the number of well-trained staff is available through capacity- building or advocacy to government etc. †¢ help ensure that the health information system is able to generate useful data on health determinants and health system performance, and also avoid creating parallel systems †¢ work with all stakeholders to ensure that there is access to medicines, vaccines, and medical technologies in an equitable fashion. †¢ strengthen health financing systems by exploring funding sources and advocating to stakeholders to raise adequate funds for health, and ensuring that people can access affordable services. †¢ strengthen the system by ensuring that the Leadership must guarantee effective oversight, regulation, and accountability. Nonetheless, in order to work efficiently and effectively in improving health care system, health NGOs themselves must also be found to be accountable, transparent, and seem to be representing the interests of the people.

The History of Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance was driven by a force of great strides in humanity. This was a time for a re-awakening of educated thinking, great artistic endeavors, and an empowering factor of humanism to use free will to govern one's future rather than allowing the church to dictate the correct path in life. The city of Florence became the center for much of this activity, where artists and scholars were sponsored royally by like-minded families of great wealth and social power. More emphasis was put onto education as a means of freedom from ignorance instead of a reason to serve God. There was a shift in power from the church to a general secularization in all areas of life, with the main focus being on the enhancement in the studies of the arts. The arts were looked at in a new way, using humanism as the new religion and the new way to achieve the greatest possible virtue. The actual term Renaissance means â€Å"re-birth†, which is essentially what was taking place overall, in Florence and other Italian states. â€Å"For Burckhardt this period consisted, broadly speaking, of the 15th century in Italy, a time and place in which â€Å"medieval† man became â€Å"modern† man. -Italy-History of, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2000. (1) This was a re-birth of ideas, learning, communication, artistry and beliefs. All of these factors were culminating together to prepare the world for the dawning of a new age, and a new direction for man to move in. The Italian Renaissance began finding it's niche among the elite in Florence in 1360, however, this was just the beginning. The Renaissance proved to be more established by the early fifteenth century among the rest of Italy, and eventually the rest of Europe. . The world was changing and ready for a new way of thinking. No longer were individuals prepared to accept the teachings of the church as their guidelines in life. Society wanted more from life than what the church had to offer. Italian culture, most noteably in Florence, was growing wealthier. With this increase of wealth came a need to pursue personal limits in achievement, education, and ability. â€Å"In their society, successful individuals, usually men, clearly were capable of doing more in this world than traditional religious views allowed. † – Modern European History I, 1992. (2) The humanists came forth from this need to learn. They were the intellect behind the Renaissance and brought to light a new view of what should be taught and studied. They embraced the classics; translating many from the ancient Greek and Roman script they were originally created in, and redefining how these works were originally interpreted. They looked upon studies in grammar, rhetorics, poetry, history and moral philosophy as a means of elevating their self-worth, and discovered that man can create his own destiny rather than follow a pre-ordained fate determined by the church. By using education to further themselves in society, the free-willed humanists were setting the standards for educated thinking, that current modern day life adheres to. â€Å"Humanism was the most important single intellectual movement of the Renaissance. † – Eugene F. Rice Jr, 1970. (3) Humanism was not only focused on education; this way of thinking also held power over other aspects of the Renaissance. 2 As much of the educational aspect centered in Florence, so did the growing desire for beauty and culture to be represented in art; another strong factor of humanism. With it's economic and social standing becoming rapidly elevated, and due to the strong tradition of democracy it held, Florence would prove to have the ideal surroundings for the birth of artistry in the Italian Renaissance movement. At the beginning of the Renaissance, Florence was a well-established, commercial city primarily controlled by the rich merchant class and some of the very wealthy and powerful families that resided there. Families such as the de Medici family, would commission artists to design and build enormous churches, palaces and other monuments to cement the families' position in Florence. Using this type of backing sponsorship, the growing artistic community was able to flourish and thrive, and produce a mutitude of glorious works, focusing on a new embodiment of their skill. The human body was looked upon and studied with more detail and realism than ever before. This lead to more accurate and life-like art work, both in painting and sculpture. Much of the art moved away from the old themes of portraying the world and humanity as perfectly as possible, and concentrated instead on capturing the actual likeness of the subject matter, no matter how unappealing or distressing it may have been. With enormous financial sponsorship behind them, artists were able to concentrate soley on their craft and expand it into the new, Renaissance style. They met great opposition from the church but were able to continue moving forward with the ongoing support of their benefactors. The infallible teachings of the church combined with the power of the Pope, were constantly challenged by the humanists and those that followed this new style of thought. Citizens were more and more frequently pledging allegiance to the crown rather than to the Vatican, creating a steady decline of power from religion. â€Å"The Christian truth that had been acknowledged as comprehending all phenomena, earthly or heavenly, now had to co-exist with a classical attitude that was overwhelmingly directed toward earthly life. – Humanism, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2000. (4) Knowledge began to undermine the position of the church. An ever-increasing amount of followers of humanism reaffirmed the fact that humans are individuals and not just souls passing through earth on their way to eternity in heaven or hell. As individuals, every human had the right to discovering his own destiny and potential. These beliefs and views were strongly frowned upon by the church, who tried in vain to reassert their influence on society. Much of the great wealth of the era was also looked at as un-Christian, but the humanists argued that wealth was only a means to achieve greater virtue. Money was needed to fund and support the arts, which provided the tools to further enlightenment in these areas. The church however, could only accept this wealth if it was used for the greater good of society. This was an argument to prevail throughout the Renaissance. From the re-evaluation of education and art, society has derived an opportunity to determine their own destiny, based on the knowledge they choose to empower themselves with. Humanists may have opposed the church and it's teachings in order 4 to move forward with free will and choice, but without that opposition, life would not hold the amount of wonderment and variation that exists today. The humanistic efforts that began during the Italian Renaissance paved the way for society to become more independent in their thinking, more realistic in their arts, and more educated in subject matter that had been too long denied. The Italian Renaissance shaped and altered the â€Å"modern† world, bringing society out of the â€Å"medieval† times and onto the path that stretched toward the optimistic future.

Prejudice,Stereotypes and Discrimination Essay

Prejudice is an attitude that releases closely to intercultural sensitively. It is more commonly held and expressed by people in ethnocentric stages of the sensitivity model compared to people in the ethnorelatives stages. (Oetzel, 2009). Prejudice is the belief and feeling aspect of an attitude. It can be a pro or con but leads us to judging something based on our preconception. Prejudice is where you think against someone or something for no particular reason, thought or knowledge. It be because race , sex , age , or whatever . An would be like , â€Å" Oh I don’t like her , she’s a lesbian,† or she’s black or white or of any other race. Stereotype are overgeneralized cognitions about a group of people with no attempt to identify within –group variation . Stereotypes often based on learned and widely shared beliefs and another group that reinforce or justify prejudice (Oetzel, 2009) . A stereotype is a set of preconceived beliefs about those who share a trait in common . It is the narrow prejudice view of a particular social group . Such as â€Å"black people know how to dance† and â€Å"women are better at cooking and worst at driving†. They’re sometimes offensive and often unfair. Stereotypes is a view of social group that sticks , even though the social group is full of individuals who may not share any of the traits of the stereotype at all. It’s like â€Å"cheerleaders are bitches† or â€Å"geeks are smart†. Discrimination is action that maintain the dominance of one group of people over another. The power to enact the behavior is a key component to racism and discrimination. That power can be from a held position (being a boss) or social power (being part of a group that has political power). (Oetzel, 2009). Discrimination is where you actively are against someone for no reason , either on the basis of age , race , class or whatever . It’s different from a prejudice because you actually do an action , such as not giving that person a job because of your prejudice , or refusing to give them a room at a hotel. I remember when I was young , I use to live with my Father in a small town in Ohio. It was mainly white community , I had a friend that was white. She had invited me over her house and her Grandma was racist. When I walked in to her home , her grandma said to me â€Å"she can’t have company at all and you need to leave†. The next day I seen my friend , she had apologized to me, and said I don’t know why my grandma acts like that to black people. â€Å" She told her granddaughter not to play with blacks only with white children†, and she only would allow white children to come to her house . She never listened to her she still played with me anyway. I told her it wasn’t her fault that some people are just racist. Later on that week I was in the store with my grandma which is white also , we had seen my friend and her grandma . Her grandma tried to act as if nothing happen and spoke to my grandma and said to me you can come back over and play. I gave an example of prejudice stereotype and discrimination . People also stereotype for many of different reasons such as tattoos, race , religion, age gender and etc. Now days young folks now have a new way to rebel against society and ultimately and more honestly their parents . We began to see masses of young , dim witted teens getting idiotic tattoos just so they can feel like a badass (greengysywolf1 (How Prejudice and Fear). Children not knowing that when they get older that tattoos will affect them getting a job or the way society will look at them because of the tattoos they have on them. Even though it’s not right that’s the way society stereotypes and discriminates people because of their appearance. People get tattoos because they enjoy them , not to mark them as different , not to get jollies of the pain , or not to be the evil spawn of satan himself (greengysywolf1 (How Prejudice and Fear). People also stereotype people that have been in prison. It’s people that have went to prison and have changed their lives around completely . I have a friend that is about â€Å"6 4† and 200 pounds , but seems blessed with a baby face , so no one believes he ever been to prison . He usually waits until he meets someone in person to tell them , even though he knows there is a chance they will refuse to accept it . I’ve seen the look , the change behind the eyes that goes from listening to what the stereotypes say an ex-con is and should be . I found it interesting because he tends to be more truthful and respectful than people who have not done time. Prejudice exist everywhere; with prejudice comes a stereotype or discrimination. Most stereotypes are dealt with minorities , especially in the United States . Basically, It all depends on how a person was raised . Most of Americans assumes that every white person grew up either in the suburbs , or well-to-do apartments in the city. While sometimes that is true ,but some lives in bad areas like farming towns and many other diverse places. Where you raise your family depends on your income and your family situation most of the time. If they have a higher income than yours average American, than they probably live in the most high-class place they can buy. If they are middle class than suburbia is most likely option. If they exist in the lower class , your income is not so great. Then they would probably live in poorly developed neighborhoods , like a trailer park or apartment complex. African Americans continue to face the highest level of discrimination in renting , selling and insuring property, according to the National Fair Housing Alliance . People with disabilities field the second highest number of claims followed by families with children and Hispanics. (surge). The British did an research article in 2009. , with 60 people ranging from 18 to 65 years of age . The tests of implicit attitude used in this study are based on links to real world behaviour, so it’s likely that those participants with a very strong homophobic attitude would routinely behave in a discriminatory way. The four or five per cent with strong prejudices would find their attitudes often affect their behaviour and the 15 to 20 per cent with ‘mid-range’ prejudices are probably unaware of their attitude, but their thoughts and feelings towards gay or lesbian people will probably surface when they are emotional, stressed, frustrated or threatened (Society, 2009). I think people should look at themselves before they try and judge others , without getting to know them or speak to them first. Before you judge a book by its cover at lease open a couple of pages and read about it first. Works Cited Oetzel, J. G. (2009). Intercultural Communication (A Layered Approach). New Jersy: Pearson Education Inc. Page, H. (n. d. ). How To Stereotypes Affect My Life. Retrieved 2012, from http://greengypsywolf1. hubpages. com/getwidget. Society, T. B. (2009, Jan 16). â€Å"Prejudice Study Finds Gay Is The New Black†. Medical News Today. Surge, H. D. (n. d. ). CNN Cable News. Retrieved 2012, from http://www. cnn. com/US/9705/21/briefs. pm/housing/index. html.

Global Warming, Not Caused by Humans - 1343 Words

Global Warming, Not Caused by Humans In modern America few problems prove to be as fundamentally problematic as the theory of human induced global warming. Its repeated coverage from within the media and political arena are influencing people worldwide, putting those who think differently in an outcast shadow. The truth of the matter is, to not believe in human induced global warming has become politically incorrect and unacceptable in the public eye. The theory of human induced global warming can be defined as the rise in temperature through human pollution of greenhouse gases resulting in catastrophic alterations in the earth s environment. However, human pollution of greenhouse gases is so minor that it is not a contribution to the†¦show more content†¦Also, in a period after World War 2 that economist call the Post War Economic Boom industrial production was at an all time high. If production is at an all time high greenhouse gas emissions are also at an all time high then ultimately the temperature should rise. However the temperature decreases in the Post War Economic Boom further more opposing the statement that human emissions cause a temperature rise. Lastly, Congress ratified the Clean Air Act in 1967 that forced many product manufactures to limit their products emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Once again less greenhouse gases should cause a decrease in temperature, but from the time the amendment was ratified in 1967, the earth has seen the five hottest years on record (EPA). With the understanding that human emissions are not the cause of global warming the risen question is why is the temperature rising? To answer that question an understanding of basic climatology is needed. John Carlisle, the director of Environmental Policy Task Force of the National Center for Public Policy Research, believes that Earth is currently in a warm interglacial called the Holocene that began 10,700 years ago. Between 6500 B.C and 3500 B.C, the temperature increased from 58 F to 62 F. This is the warmest the earth has been during the Holocene, which is why scientists refer to the period as the Holocene Maximum. Since the Holocene Maximum, the planet has continued to experience temperatureShow MoreRelatedGlobal Warming Is Caused By Human Beings1174 Words   |  5 PagesGlobal Warming Global warming appears to be caused by human beings. There is too much CO2 in the atmosphere for plants and trees to take in all of it. There is strong evidence that humans are to blame, not just due to cars and factories but also from agriculture. A majority of scientists and scientific organizations believe humans are causing global warming. Global Warming is controversial. 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