S16407 Island School

Nicole Ho Final Poverty Essay

Nicole H 9N

S16407

Poverty happens all over the world. It is a cycle that is very hard to stop and there are many reasons added up together that forms this cycle. These reasons include: lack of stability, lack of opportunity, lack of freedom, lack of education and most importantly, lack of healthcare. Poverty also creates many issues, such as slavery, housing problems, child labor and prostitution.

This essay will be further looking into how lack of health care both locally and globally can keep people in poverty, how it also affects education and what the governments are doing to improve these situations. This essay is inspired from the simulation that I went through a few weeks ago, and I hope this essay will help you understand more about poverty and healthcare, who is helping now, and what we can do to improve it further.

My main question is: To what extent does lack of health care help contribute in keeping people in poverty. If we are not healthy, we cant do anything. If people in poverty are sick, they cant work, go to school and earn money. In order for people to get a good education, they first need to take care of their health and ensure that they are strong and healthy.

First, I will be looking at how lack of health care is affecting people on a local scale, in Hong Kong.

Who receives healthcare from the government and is it enough? What does the government do to support people in poverty to get a better health care?

Is there a law that states that anyone who receives under a certain amount of income can have free health care?

In Hong Kong, there are different ways to subsidy people below the poverty line for health care. These include healthcare vouchers, medical fee waivers and difference in fees and charges. i

Nicole Ho

S16407

However, rules apply to the above. Healthcare vouchers are only available to elderly ages 65 or above ii, medical fee waivers only apply to people whos income doesnt exceed 75% of the Median Monthly Domestic Household Income.
iii

MMDHI is a

table that shows how much income families (depending on the number of people in one family) get each month. Difference in fees and charges apply to both public and private hospitals, depending on if you are a Hong Kong citizen or not. Although the rules are set, it doesnt mean that everyone gets the healthcare that they are entitled to get, in a limited amount of time. Hong Kong citizens are still struggling to get quality healthcare. A News Report from Time Out Hong Kong proves the above statement true.iv Eighty eight year old Lung King Fai has been waiting for four years for a cataract surgery on his right eye at the Public Hong Kong Eye hospital. He received a similar surgery to his left eye, after waiting six years. He also have lower back pains which are worsening, and for which he is on another waiting list. He tells Time Out that they cancelled my next appointment, because they told me they lacked the staff...they gave me all this medicine, enough for several years, and then asked me to wait. This is evidence that though there are medical fee waivers that help support people in poverty, it takes years till surgery can be done. Medical Fee Waivers and healthcare vouchers will not quicken the waiting process. Not only Hong Kong people struggle with lack of healthcare, there is also the same problem globally, especially in non-developed countries. There is a news report from Financial Times, called India: Weak healthcare systems threatens development. A 46-year-old New Delhi housekeeper Jacintha Shekar was diagnosed with cancer, and even in this life or death situation, every hospital she visited she has to wait for 4 5 months to have the operation. In the end, she went to a private hospital, but the cost of the surgery is Rs5000, 000. Mrs Shekar is now cancer free, but the family debt with take more than 8 years to repay. v This is a perfect example of lack of healthcare. There are hospitals available, but more often than not, you had to wait for half a year until you even get a chance to see the doctor! If Mrs Shekar chose to ignore the cancer, she would probably be dead by now, but if she goes to a private hospital, she would still be repaying her debts years after the operation. This is how the cycle of poverty goes on and on. 3

Nicole Ho

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In India, more than 40% of Indians borrow money for healthcare, and 23% Indians ignore and never obtain healthcare. Indian governments only spend 0.9% of their money on healthcare, and it is one of the worlds lowest levels of public health care funding. viThese statistics points out that Mrs Shekars case is not an isolated case. There are many people in India who doesnt receive the healthcare they are entitled to get, and has to either go to private hospitals and take years to repay their debt, or choosing to ignore it. With very little health care fundings, Indians who are poor and in poverty have no money to maintain their health, resulting deadly sicknesses and diseases. They also need to make big decisions, because if they spend large amounts of money on healthcare, they dont have money for food and shelter. Healthcare also links to education. People often have to choose between getting quality healthcare, or spending money on education. There is another article from Huffington Post, Health care and Poverty, A Vicious Cycle vii. Millions of American children are living below the poverty line, and a study has shown that 7 out of 10 black/brown males drop out of school before they get their diploma to help their family earn money, resulting no jobs being offered later in life. More than 5 million parents cant spend their evenings with their children because they are too busy trying to earn enough money to support rents. This results children getting sick and being underweight or overweight they rely on cheap fast food to keep them full, and many foods have little nutrition and high amounts of fats in them, and they dont have enough money to see doctors. Some families cant even afford breakfast, which results poor eyesight and blurry visions in school. They cant afford to go to the doctors and pay for medicine, and so they become more and more sick. Education will help to get them out of poverty, but they first need to be healthy, and this is why healthcare is so important. These healthcare issues not only affect people locally and globally, it also affects me personally. This is because if not all people have regular check ups, they might not realize that they have sicknesses that can be transmitted to others and it might affect my health as well. A lot of diseases can be transmitted just by one sneeze or a

Nicole Ho

S16407

coughviii, and if not everyone has regular visits to the hospitals just because they cant afford it, then we might also be affected. Personally, I can help people in poverty by donating not just money, but other things that I dont need to organisations, which will deliver it to people in need. I can also spread the world to others and together we can all be aware and empathize people in poverty, because we cant just sympathize, donate money when we want and thin k that everything will be okay. Organisations such as Heartland Alliance ix, WHO (World Health Organisation)x, aDollaraDay xi are helping to improve this situation and setting goals to improve healthcare for everyone, especially children. All these organisations are aiming to reach goals from the Millennium Development Goals xii. The MDG is a handbook, which consists of eight main goals to end poverty, starting from achieving universal primary education to ensuring environmental sustainability to improving healthcare for both children and adults. In conclusion, after researching more deeply into the problem and connection between poverty and healthcare, I realized that it is much more complicated than I once thought it was. I went through the simulation, which makes me realize that when you are working hard to survive, nothing else matters, and we forget everything except that we have to make as many paper bags as we possibly can to earn just enough money. We also have to make hard decisions if we pay the rent, we wont have education and health insurances, which means that people get sick very easily and the number of paper bags we make will decrease. If we pay for the education and healthcare though, we wouldnt have enough money to pay the rent and we would have to beg for money on the streets, under the bridge. In just those 30 minutes, I never thought that being in poverty also means being in a lot of stressed situations, and sometimes you have to choose and sacrifice things in order to survive. I now can empathize the people in poverty, not just sympathize. I also now know that donating money is not enough. Money is temporary, but good health and knowledge is permanent. In order to help people out of poverty, we must provide quality healthcare to the poor, and they might have a chance to break through the poverty line, once they are healthy and strong. Word Count: 1595 5

Nicole Ho

S16407

http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/health/hosp/ http://www.hcv.gov.hk/eng/pub_background.htm iii http://www.ha.org.hk/visitor/ha_visitor_index.asp?Parent_ID=10044&Content_ID=1 0047&Ver=HTML iv http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/48246/the-tragic-decline-of-publicdoctors.html v http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/38a119dc-c955-11e2-bb5600144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2jrdKdsyg vi http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/38a119dc-c955-11e2-bb5600144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2jrdKdsyg vii http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregory-seal-livingston/health-care-andpoverty_b_214610.html viii http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+interne t/health+topics/health+conditions+prevention+and+treatment/infectious+diseases/wa ys+infectious+diseases+spread ix http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sid-mohn/ending-poverty_b_4039784.html x http://www.who.int/en/ xi http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00282/other_org.htm xii http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
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