Introduction: Why Pharmacy on a Bicycle
In: Pharmacy on a Bicycle: Innovative Solutions for Global Health and Poverty 2013 Jan 01 1(1):1-10
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Every three minutes, nearly 50 children under the age of five dies. In the same three minutes, 2 mothers lose their lives in childbirth. Every year, malaria kills 655,000 people, despite the fact that it can be prevented with a mosquito net and treated for $1.41.Sadly, this list goes on and on. Millions are dying from diseases that we can easily and inexpensively prevent, diagnose, and treat. Why? Because even though we know exactly what people need, we just can't get it to them. They are dying not because we can't solve a medical problem but because we can$t solve a logistics problem.In this profoundly important book, Eric Bing and Marc Epstein lay out a solution: a new kind of bottom-up health care that is delivered at the source. We need microclinics, micropharmacies, and microentrepreneurs located in the remote, hard-to-reach communities they serve. By building a new model that 'scales down' to train and incentivize all kinds of health-care providers in their own villages and towns, we can create an army of on-site professionals who can prevent tragedy at a fraction of the cost of top-down bureaucratic programs.Bing and Epstein have seen the model work, and they provide example after example of the extraordinary results it has achieved in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They describe the principles and practices involved in implementing it and explain how to apply it to overcome specific health challenges.This is a book about taking health care the last mile — sometimes literally — to prevent widespread, unnecessary, and easily avoided death and suffering. Pharmacy on a Bicycle shows how the same forces of innovation and entrepreneurship that work in first-world business cultures can be unleashed to save the lives of millions.
Dawa paced in front of Pemba 's door, trying to hide his concern. He had run out of his medication, and Pemba had been kind enough to share his. Both men had been told to never stop taking their medications because HIV was a virus that could quickly develop resistance, and then the drugs would no longer work. Now Pemba was beginning to run out of his supply as well.Dawa and Pemba were running low on medicine because a bandh, or strike, was making it impossible to get to the pharmacy. In Nepal, during a bandh, it was wise to avoid going out in a car, because if you did, you could get your tires slashed, your windows broken, or your vehicle set on fire. The bandh was in its second week, and the men had nowhere to turn once their medications ran out.Crises stimulate action. In dire straits, we become innovative and entrepreneurial. Which is what happened in this case. The Saath-Saath Project, a local HIV program, partnered with a hospital and some community health workers to create a pharmacy-on-a-bicycle brigade. If the patients couldn't go to the pharmacy, then the pharmacy would go to them.
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Introduction: Why Pharmacy on a Bicycle
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Bing, Eric G. [Ed.] ; Epstein, Marc J. [Ed.] ; Eric G. [Ed.] ; Marc J. [Ed.] |
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Quelle: | Pharmacy on a Bicycle: Innovative Solutions for Global Health and Poverty 2013 Jan 01 1(1):1-10 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2013 |
Medientyp: | Buch |
ISBN: | 978-1-60994-790-3 (print) |
DOI: | 10.5848/BK.978-1-60994-790-3_2 |
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