Why do developing countries often have a shortage of healthcare resources? How does this affect cardiovascular disease (CVD)? These countries deserve to have a transformation. Circumstances that could potentially alter the life expectancy of a country is seeming to be normalized. The scarcity of healthcare resources in Third World countries is causing a detrimental effect on its people. In the Philippines, the questions could continue: Why is it happening? What is causing it? What will happen if it continues? Four million people in the Philippines need help. In a matter of years, the consequences will be suffocating if this situation gets neglected.
You may ask, “Why is it happening?” People in Third World countries want new technologies that could lower their countries’ mortality rates. They need funds that can improve their healthcare and open opportunities in the medical field. According to Katelynn Kenworthy from The Borgen Project, “The WHO refers to the Filipino Healthcare System as ‘fragmented.’ There is a history of unfair and unequal access to health services that significantly affects the poor. The government spends little money on the program which causes high out-of-pocket spending and further widens the gap between rich and poor.” This issue further highlights the dilemmas that Filipinos confront daily.
The number one killer disease is striking? in the Philippines. Four million people in Manila are suffering from CVD. CVD affects approximately 8.5% of Canadian adults over the age of 20. In the Philippines, CVD affects 13.8% of Filipinos, ranging from infants to adults. The population of the Philippines is 109.2 million, 71.5 million fewer than in Canada. “All over the world, including in Manila, cardiovascular diseases pose the biggest threat to people’s health,” says Dr. Gundo Weiler, WHO’s representative. Heart diseases solidified their place as the leading killer in the Philippines, impacting nearly nine million lives in 2019.
References
Elgarten, Taylor. “A Long Way to Go for Health Care in Developing Countries.” The Borgen Project, 22 June 2017, borgenproject.org/health-care-in-developing-countries.
Kenworthy, Katelynn. “10 Facts About Healthcare in the Philippines.” The Borgen Project, 16 June 2017, borgenproject.org/healthcare-in-the-philippines.
Public Health Agency of Canada. “Heart Disease in Canada: Highlights from the Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System.” Canada.Ca, 18 July 2017, www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/heart-disease-canada-fact-sheet.html.
Alimurung, Mariano M. “Heart Disease in the Philippines.” ScienceDirect, Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors, Sept. 1962, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0002914962903235.