{"id":117,"date":"2014-05-14T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=117"},"modified":"2016-10-28T15:24:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T14:24:15","slug":"health-care-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/05\/14\/health-care-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthcare in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_369\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-369\" style=\"width: 325px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-04-24-09.55.06.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-369\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-04-24-09.55.06-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Healthcare for all\" width=\"325\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-369\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Healthcare for all<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Healthcare in Africa has a long way to go. Rich and poor, <strong>we all want to have quality healthcare.<\/strong> However, not everyone has equal access to these services. While those Africans who can afford it travel abroad to get the treatments they need, others die because they can&#8217;t be diagnosed on time or receive the appropriate treatment.<\/p>\n<p>While in Lagos, I learned about a pharmacist whose husband ended up with a warehouse in a not-so-good area of the city, and which didn&#8217;t serve its initial purpose. He suggested that she set a pharmacy there. She was hesitant as it was\u00a0<strong>a poor neighborhood where no certified pharmacist operates<\/strong>. Would those people come as customers? They didn&#8217;t have acquisitive capacity and couldn&#8217;t afford to pay the extra money for a certified pharmacist&#8230; Still, she decided to go ahead and open her pharmacy.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_371\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-371\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-03-04-17.55.27.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-371 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-03-04-17.55.27-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Pharmacy in Lagos\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-03-04-17.55.27-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-03-04-17.55.27-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2014\/02\/2014-03-04-17.55.27-624x467.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pharmacy in Lagos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>People started coming, and\u00a0<strong>the word spread<\/strong>\u00a0that a certified pharmacist was in the area. Whatever little money they have, they save it to <strong>buy the drugs at this &#8220;proper pharmacy&#8221;:<\/strong> they know these are &#8220;the right drugs&#8221; that come with the assurance of a certified pharmacist, not from someone who doesn&#8217;t have the qualifications, and who delivers the not-so-good drugs which turn out less effective. People go to her pharmacy with whatever money they have, and say &#8220;<strong>this is as much as I can pay.&#8221;<\/strong> Jointly, they look for a solution to make it work out.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, this pharmacist is not the only one\u00a0<strong>bringing quality health-care to the poor<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ge.com\/\">General Electric<\/a>\u00a0has developed a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www3.gehealthcare.com\/en\/Products\/Categories\/Ultrasound\/Vscan\"><strong>pocket-sized ultrasound tool<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that can make an important difference in diagnosis in countries with not so well developed healthcare systems. This innovation came from India, and they are now\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/gedestinationafrica.com\/\">working with the Ghanaian Ministry of Health<\/a>\u00a0to introduce it across the country. Hopefully, other countries will follow soon.<\/li>\n<li>Through their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.malaria.novartis.com\/malaria-initiative\/the-malaria-initiative\/index.shtml\"><strong>Malaria Initiative<\/strong>,<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.novartis.com\/\">Novartis<\/a>\u00a0has provided <strong>600 M malaria treatments to more than 60 countries<\/strong> and holds a research program working on the next generation of anti-malarial drugs. By the way, one of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iese.edu\/en\/mba\/\">IESE&#8217;s MBA <\/a>alumni led this effort in Kenya.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also <strong>many initiatives with\u00a0this same purpose at a smaller scale.<\/strong> And I&#8217;m glad to share with you that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unav.edu\/\">University of Navarra<\/a> (to which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iese.edu\/\">IESE <\/a>belongs) does its bit through its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unav.edu\/web\/vida-universitaria\/detallenoticiapestania\/2012\/03\/14\/proyecto-monkole:-una-via-abierta-para-la-solidaridad-impulsada-por-ciencias-medicina-farmacia-y-enfermeria?articleId=314408\">collaboration with Centre Hospitalier Monkole<\/a>. Located in Kinshasa (Congo), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.monkole.cd\/\">Monkole&#8217;s <\/a>mission is to offer quality Medicine for all in the middle of Africa. I guess you are familiar with some other\u00a0<strong>similar\u00a0initiatives<\/strong>: would\u00a0you <strong>share them with us?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On a different note, this <strong>&#8220;out-of-the-oven&#8221; book<\/strong> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbs.edu.ng\/sites\/faculty_research\/ovadje_franca\">Prof. Franca Ovadje <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbs.edu.ng\/\">(Lagos Business School)<\/a>\u00a0looks promising <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.routledge.com\/books\/details\/9780415819237\/\">&#8220;Change Leadership in Developing Countries&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>: it takes an <strong>African perspective<\/strong>\u00a0and draws from <strong>case studies of African organizations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Healthcare in Africa has a long way to go. Rich and poor, we all want to have quality healthcare. However, not everyone has equal access to these services. While those Africans who can afford it travel abroad to get the treatments they need, others die because they can&#8217;t be diagnosed on time or receive the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[492,993],"tags":[814,100472,70262,80748,1147],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","category-living-conditions","tag-healthcare","tag-inequalities","tag-infrastructures","tag-life-style","tag-poverty","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}