building resilient health care systems

Of Viruses and the Limits of Masculine (Dys)topias

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The ongoing environmental damage is predicted to make humans vulnerable to further plagues. When biodiversity is on the wane, viruses have one particular species to live on – humans.

Summary and review of “Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution”

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The Cuban system demonstrates a sustainable model of medical care, providing a high level of service with low use of resources. Many greens think only in terms of reducing personal consumption, or hoping for technical advances that will enable continued affluence. Too few realise that there have to be radical changes in systems as well as in lifestyles.

Cuba: From AIDS, Dengue, and Ebola to COVID-19

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Cuba’s preparation for COVID-19 began on January 1, 1959.  On that day, over sixty years before the pandemic, Cuba laid the foundations for what would become the discovery of novel drugs, bringing patients to the island, and sending medical aid abroad.

Indigenous Communities Carry on Berta Cacéres’ Work by Defending Nature and Health Care in Honduras

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On March 2, hundreds gathered in Honduras to commemorate the life and work of the renowned Honduran activist Berta Cáceres on the second anniversary of her assassination. Carrying torches, Cáceres’ supporters marched to the city center of La Esperanza to demand justice for her 2016 assassination.

Why Climate Change Belongs in the Health Care Debate

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I’m digging through reports and punditry to make sense of health care reform when I realize that while we’ve been debating single-payer systems and high-risk pools, no one’s talking about the most serious health threat: climate change. I know what global warming is doing to our ecosystems. My Twitter feed is a stream of climate disaster revelations. Given the serious implications droughts, floods, and fires pose to our health, shouldn’t climate change be part of the health care discussions?

A Care Economy

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There is a care economy out there. Many of the most important and fulfilling parts of our lives—such as parenting, neighbourliness and favours—are about care, even if they are not conventionally classed as economic activity. When people are motivated by a need that inspires care, whether unpaid or paid, there can be a richness in the motivation as it is needs-driven and sustaining of both people and society.

Radicle and Rhizomati: Notes from a Folk Herbalist

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Herbal medicines are, and always have been, a rhizomatic source of the equitable and lateral distribution of basic needs that seeks not to hoard, commercialise, and capitalise on healthcare or to dole it out only to those with access to the necessary currency.