Health in East London - Assignment Example

Health in East London Profile of East London East London is the regions on the northeastern part of the of London. The region does not have an official definition but the section of London’s concept to the eastern part of the city has its origins in the year 1970 as ‘The Region Beyond the Tower.’ It then came to be known as the East London by the year 1950 and was regarded to be including all of the Great London, which is the east of the London City and the northern part of the River Themes. Currently, the region consists of the London boroughs of Hackney, Dagenham and Barking, the Redbridge, Havering, the Waltham Forest and the Tower of Hamlets. The East End of London is the East London’s subset, which corresponds to the regions that are nearer to the ancient city. Nevertheless, the development of the city towards the east was as a result of the growth of industries that were lined or associated with River Themes like the docks and the building of the ships. Since these industries started declining during the later part of the twentieth century, now the area of East London is a region of regeneration. This has actually reached the advanced stages in the London Docklands, however, it is still continuing in the East London parts that fall within the Thames Gateway, like the Stratford’s redevelopment which is linked to the Summer Olympics of the year 2012 (Barts and East London, 2011). The areas that fall further east were developed during the Edwardian and Victorian periods as a result of the railways expansion during the nineteenth century. The development of the suburban residences for the purposes of private sale later came to be matched by the offering of social housing on large scale in the 1920s at Becontree and Harold Hill after World War I. Nevertheless, we find that the constraining of the urban footprint was done by the protection or preservation of the Epping Forest in the year 1878 and later the Metropolitan Green Belt’s implementation. The intensity of development rose in the period of interwar and new companies developed in Dagenham like Ford. The population in the Tower Hamlets reached its highest in the year 1891 and then the population growth was limited to the outer boroughs. The population had peaked in each borough and the whole region was experiencing a fall in the population growth. According to the census of the year 2011, this was seen to be reversed and each borough has seen some increase in the population. The region of East London evidently has a rich history but has not lacked some setbacks in many aspects such as the section of healthcare. The region seemingly has a large population and has not been able to have adequate healthcare provision services. The region has inadequate healthcare provision services such as sufficient hospitals and medical practitioners. This problem has been extensive to some extent such that it has lead to some deaths mainly among the pregnant women who are always turned away due to lack of more space to accommodate them as the available rooms are always full. This problem is mainly as a result of the large population in the region and laxity by the local administration to ensure that the people in the region are enabled to access adequate healthcare services. The establishment of the Oliver King Foundation was exclusively for the purposes of remembering of Oliver. Oliver was a very fit and active boy of twelve years old and participated in various sports, which included swimming, rugby, soccer and athletics. The boy had just began his high school and was taking part in his first ever lesson in swimming of the year when he fainted. Despite the efforts of the medical doctors to save his life, he eventually died (British Medical Journal, 1999). The young boy died as a result of a condition known as (SADS) Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome. This is a condition that takes the lives of individuals who are within the age range of twelve and nineteen every week. If an individual is suffering from cardiac arrest, it is critical to have an early and timely defibrillation. In each minute that the defibrillator is not used, the survival chances decrease by ten percent. The CPR’s main function is restoration of partial flow of the blood that is oxygenated to the heart and brain, but cannot start the heart. However, this can only be done by the use of a defibrillator. The goals and mission of the organization is ensuring that the society in which it operates is very safe and free from the healthcare problems that can be easily avoided. More so, the organization has a special focus on the violence that is considered to be gender-based, reproductive and sexual health and rights together with the gendered nature of the HIV and AIDS, and aims at building the capacity of the human rights and women activists to realize and claim the rights of the women. The organization makes sure that this is done via the development of some knowledge that are new and the utilization of the approach that is rights-based (Goodenough, 2004). This is manly why the organization was established, but has since extended its services to include others such as offering advice to people as regards matters health in general. The organization has also been offering services such as taking sick people to the hospitals; that is for those who are not in a position of having access to the hospitals or even raising the funds for meeting medical bills. The organization also helps in the reproductive health, which means that individuals within the region are in a position of having a satisfying, safer and responsible sex life, and also that they have the ability of producing and the freedom of making a decision regarding how frequent and when to do it. One of its analysis or interpretation implies that individuals ought to be given information about and to be able to reach safe, cheap, effective and acceptable birth control means or methods. In addition, it ensures that people are able to get proper sexual healthcare services, reproductive medicine as well as the implementation of programs of healthcare education to emphasize the significance of women going safely through the process of pregnancy and childbirth, which offers couples with perhaps the best chance to have an infant that is very healthy. On the other hand, people experience inequalities in the reproductive healthcare services. These inequalities are based on the socioeconomic position, the level of education, the religion, the available resources and age in the environment. For instance, it is possible that the low income people do not have adequate resources for proper healthcare services and the awareness or knowledge of knowing what is good for the maintenance of health that is reproductive (The King’s Fund, 2007). The early childbearing together with some other behaviors can actually have health dangers or risks for the women as well as their infants. The issue of having to wait until a woman attains the age of eighteen before attempting to give birth greatly helps in the improvement of child and maternal health. If there is an additional baby to be given birth to, it is believed to be healthier for the parent, and also for the succeeding baby, to wait for at least two years after the first birth before trying to give birth to another. Nevertheless, after a fetal casualty, it is good to wait for at least six months. The World Health Organization approximates that every year, three hundred and fifty eight thousand women lose their lives as a result of complications that are related to childbirth and pregnancy; ninety nine percent of these deaths take place within the population groups that are the most disadvantaged or the most poor, and living in the countries that are poorest in the world. Majority of these fatalities can be evaded or avoided through the improvement of the access to quality healthcare by the women from a professional birth attendant before, also during and after the pregnancy and childbirth (Burman, 1999). It is true that this organization actually meets the healthcare needs of the people in the region of East London to some extent, even though not that much. The company tries very much to teach individuals about safe and responsible sex. It teaches the locals about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, as some people, especially teenagers usually do it without knowing how to do it responsibly by avoiding getting early or unplanned pregnancies. The issue of many pregnancies within the region is one of the factors that have greatly led to inadequate healthcare services provision in terms of maternity. When there are many women pregnant in the region it becomes difficult for the health care facilities in terms of maternal health care provision to be able to accommodate them adequately. Consequently, when the women go to the hospitals and find that there are not more room for accommodating them, they are forced to go and look for the services elsewhere, and this is what leads to most of them dying in the process of delivery or even the babies being given birth to (Bond, 2002). In addition, the organization teaches or enlightens the women in the region together with their husbands regarding how they can do the childbirth at home in case it comes at the unexpected times or even when they are turned away from the hospitals because there are not rooms for accommodating them. They are also taught how to deal with the situations such as offering first aid in the problems that are associated with the pregnancies. They are even taught how they can deal with the situation while on the way to the hospitals in case it comes fast before arriving there. Some women usually have difficulties in handling the situations of emergencies that are related to the issues of pregnancies, together with their husbands, and this is what the organization does to avert a lot of problems that might arise in case the situations are not handled well or sufficiently. The company has been actively involved in these activities of helping the locals, which has consequently helped in reducing the cases of fatalities as would otherwise have been experienced if nothing was done at all (Wood, 2009). The work of the organization does not just end there whereby it helps in the provision of maternal advice to the pregnant women all through to the time of delivery but extends even after the process is over. There are some women who do not always know how to take care of their babies, especially those who give birth for the first time. Such women usually have difficulties in handling of the babies and some even go to the extend of neglecting them and then they end up dying due to the negligence. These are some of the services that the organization has been offering to the locals and has so far proved to be fruitful as the number of babies that have been dying in the region at a very early age has sharply gone down. This is a very positive thing from the organization as it has also helped the hospitals in the region to have sufficient time to deal with the other cases, especially emergency ones, as the cases that arise as a result of ignorance or lack of knowledge as regards how to best deal or handle babies are now handled outside of the hospitals or dispensaries (Morrell, 2007). Nevertheless, even though the organization has appeared to be doing a lot to the local people in the region, I believe there are still a lot that need to be done so as to make the problem of healthcare inadequacy in the area a forgone case. For instance, some of the things that the company can do it to solicit for more funds from some other donors and even to seek the support of the government so as to try and establish or build some hospitals or even dispensaries to help in dealing with the issues one on one (Brown and Fan, 1991). It is always said that it is good to always have both short-term and long-term solutions to problems. The organization is doing so well in the short-term part of the problem by offering advices and teachings to the locals about safe and responsible sex but the establishment of the dispensaries will be the ultimate solution to the issues. The establishment of the organization is just like a blessing to the locals as it has helped them in cutting down the costs of seeking health care services. The provision of advices and enlightenments as well as financial support to the locals, especially the pregnant women in their process of giving birth has been a big relief to their problems. This has consequently led to a decrease in the number of infant deaths. Therefore, it is important that a lot of funds is invested into the organization so that it can be able to expand its services and even serve more individuals than it is currently doing. References Barts and East London 2011, Outline Business Case: Draft 5 July 2011. London: Barts and East London. Bond J 2002. They were South Africans. London: Oxford University Press. British Medical Journal 1999, Briefing: The London Health Planning Consortium. London: British Medical Journal. Brown, H. L.; Fan, Y. 1991. "Obstetric complications in young teenagers". South Medical Journal 84: 46–48. Burman, J 1999. Early Railways at the Cape. Cape Town. Human & Rousseau, p.81. Goodenough W 2004, Report of the Inter-departmental Committee on Medical Schools. (Chairman: Sir William Goodenough.) London: HMSO. Morrell D 2007, ‘Inner London general practice--is there a solution?’ Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1981 Jan 10;282(6258):162–163. The King’s Fund 2007, Transforming Health in London. London: The King’s Fund. Wood J 2009, ‘Are the problems of primary care in inner cities fact or fiction?’ Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1983 Apr 2;286(6371):1109–1112. Read More