Throughout history disease has always been one of the biggest challenges society has faced. Despite numerous medical advantages, humanity still has not managed to successfully solve this problem completely. Diseases occur unevenly throughout various regions of the world. Different places have different diseases to treat and handle them in different ways. The book Improvising Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic by Julie Livingston looks at the cancer epidemic in Botswana by telling the story of a cancer ward in the country’s capitol city, Gaborone. In the London Review of Books, Paul Farmer discusses the effect Ebola has had on Liberia in Diary.
When discussing diseases one important factor to analyze is …show more content…
For example the ward does not have enough platelets to meet every patients need, “five patients each need between four and six units of platelets. Yet the hospital blood bank only has five units total to dispense. How is Dr. P to decide how to distribute the platelets? Should each patient receive at least one unit? Or should all units go to the neediest case? The one with the best prognosis? Should the Mma Kgabo, who has failed to show up for two scheduled rounds of chemotherapy, be denied a share of the precious platelet as punishment for her ‘noncompliance’? Should Mr. Mill, whose prognosis in bleak, be denied platelets, even though he is the only patient actively bleeding” (Livingston 21). It is also difficult to be properly diagnosed with cancer in Botswana, and Livingston mentions that few doctors and nurses have been trained to properly deal with cancer. These countries also lack the advanced medical equipment available to other countries such as the United States. Farmer mentions in his piece how there was little doubt the United States will be able to contain Ebola once it arrived at the country, and Livingston says that the early stages of breast cancer don’t really exist in Botswana, because the country lacks the technology that allows for the pre and early cancers to be regularly …show more content…
Ebola has led to the shutdown of schools and airlines and nursing homes. It can also slow down trade, commerce, and keep other countries from investing. Disease can also have a dangerous psychological affect on a country’s populace. In Diary, Farmer remarks about killings that may have been caused by Ebola’s spread, “There have been incidents of violence linked to fear and stigma. In Liberia – where we were warmly welcomed – my colleagues and I heard that seven Ebola workers, apparently including two local public-health officials, had been murdered with machetes in rural Guinea. Their bodies were discovered in the septic tank of a local primary school. Eleven years ago, four Congolese schoolteachers engaged in Ebola-awareness campaigns were also killed”