Health equity is an urgent policy priority in health sector reforms in many underdeveloped and underserved communities throughout the world. Project H.E.A.L. (Heath Equity Achievement for Life) works to:
- Expand community level health services
- Establish ongoing partnerships to address limited funding and shortage of health professionals and of drugs.
- Equip provincial hospitals, district hospitals, and/or integrated health care centres in targeted communities.
Africa
According to The Economist’s 2012 report, The Future of Healthcare in Africa, “the incidence of chronic disease is rising fast, creating a new matrix of challenges for Africa’s healthcare workers, policy makers and donors.”
Studies have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia, and even CNN has reported, on the millions worth of medical supplies that are discarded each year in the United States. Annually, perfectly useable medical supplies are discarded because of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, strict manufacturer warranties and legal concerns. FHF, Inc. works with key partners to identify, retrieve, and prepare unused supplies for distribution to needed health centre locations that lack basic necessities. As an example, extra swabs, sterile needles and syringes, soap, and other seemingly insignificant items that are taken into patients’ rooms must be discarded when patients are discharged. These supplies have not been used, but they cannot be put back into supply closets or used for others patients.
United States
The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has an initiative Healthy People 2020 that has a goal “to achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups.” This national health promotion and disease prevention initiative aims at bringing individuals and agencies together to improve the health of all Americans.
FHF, Inc. works in partnership with its network of volunteers, staff and partner organizations to improve practices that increase public awareness and understanding of the determinants of health, disease, and disability and the opportunities for progress.
