Health
The Change We Seek
We work toward a world where everyone has access to basic health care and protection from environmental hazards. Those who are less well off should not disproportionately suffer the consequences of hazardous emissions and waste or poor health care delivery systems. No disease should be ignored simply because it affects only the poor.
HEALTH:
Associação Saúde Criança stops the cycle of hospitalization, discharge and rehospitalization among sick children in Brazil. The problem? At home, kids would get sick again, and re-enter the hospital when it was sometimes too late. Saude Crianca restructures kids’ families in five areas: health, vocational training, housing, education and citizenship. Its institutes help 40,000 people monthly. Saúde Criança’s methodology became part of public policy and decreased the average number of days children spend in hospitals annually by 66 percent.
Village Reach (VR) has created such an innovative system to improve the health of the poor in Mozambique, the Ministry of Health is partnering to implement it nationally. VR increased immunization coverage rates for children under age 5 in northern Mozambique from 68 percent to 95 percent with a last-mile logistics system that costs the government less to operate. VR’s social business, VidaGas, is the largest propane distributor in northern Mozambique, which supports the health system.
Riders for Health has given the poor in seven African countries an efficient way to get to the hospital by training locals to fix the cars and motorcycles that have broken down and been abandoned (its founders saw women in labor being carried to the hospital in wheelbarrows). Riders created a non-profit vehicle-leasing model that works in the Gambia, enabling the Ministry of Health to reach the entire population with its public health services, including maternal health, immunization and distribution of bed nets. It’s also created a professional motorcycle courier service to ensure urine and blood specimens reach labs in time.
Health Care Without Harm makes the health care industry more environmentally friendly. It’s helped close medical waste incinerators, eliminated mercury medical products, reduce hospital greenhouse gas emissions and bring local and sustainable foods to hospitals. HCWH has a network of 450 organizations in 52 countries.
One World Health (iOWH) develops lifesaving medicine for neglected diseases. It’s the first non-profit drug research and development organization in the US. Its milestones include the development of paromomycin intramuscular injection (PMIM) as a safe, effective, and affordable treatment for kala-azar. iOWH reduced the toll of diarrheal diseases, which kill 1.5 million children under age five in developing countries every year. It’s made progress in developing an alternative source of artemisinin, a critical component for malaria treatment.
Gram Vikas works mainly in Orissa, India, to help the poor. Its model of improving sanitation and water supply systems ensure access to protected piped water to all families all through the year. About 80 percent of disease and death in rural areas are traced to water borne diseases. Gram Vikas’ program ensures each family builds their own toilet and bathroom, with piped water supply from a common water tower originating from wells or perennial springs.
Mothers2Mothers helps prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa through a model of care that supports mother and child health. It relies on trained local women who provide education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV. With 600 program sites, it has more than 200,000 patient encounters each month and reaches more than 20 percent of the HIV+ pregnant women in the world.
Tostan has helped abandon the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) and child marriages in five African countries. It has taught human rights to more than 200,000 villagers. Tostan’s approach has been integrated into international strategies, including 10 U.N. agencies and five governments. In Senegal, the government has adopted a National Action Plan that calls for using the human rights approach pioneered by Tostan to end FGC by 2015.
Health Leads expands the capacity of clinics and hospitals to meet the underlying needs of poor patients. Doctors prescribe support services along with medication, and Health Leads volunteers connect patients to sources of food, housing, and job training. Within 90 days, the majority of patients served by Health Leads have secured at least one essential resource, and 83 percent of its volunteer graduates have gone on to jobs or advanced study in the fields of health and poverty.
VisionSpring makes sure that the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America have access to eye doctors and glasses. It trains local women in countries like Bangladesh to provide glasses, creating permanent distribution. It’s sold nearly 400,000 pairs of glasses and doubled its sales each year. VisionSpring and its partners support more than 5,000 Vision Entrepreneurs – mostly women — who run their own businesses selling eyeglasses in these countries.
APOPO trains rats to find landmines and help diagnose tuberculosis (TB) in Africa. APOPO’s HeroRATS have returned 1.3 million square meters of suspected minefields to original populations in Mozambique, impacting more than 50,000 individuals. This African approach is now being copied in Latin America and South East Asia. APOPO’s HeroRATS diagnosed more than 900 TB patients in Tanzania and prevented TB infection in 13,500 healthy people.
Partners in Health (PIH) was founded by the legendary Dr. Paul Farmer, of whom the book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World was written. The PIH hospital in Haiti provides free treatment to patients. PIH helps patients living in poverty obtain effective drugs to treat tuberculosis and AIDS. PIH also oversees projects in Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and Peru.
Water For People partners with communities in developing countries to create sustainable, locally-maintained drinking water solutions and supports market-driven sanitation solutions. It recently developed a new open-source monitoring and evaluation technology called FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch), which leverages Android technology and Google Earth software for tracking the status of water points at least 10 years after implementation.
