#under-resourced

It is reported that yet another person has died, allegedly as a result of heavily over-stretched medical resources being unable to properly fulfil their roles - in this case the ambulance service.

This time it was a heart attack victim who rang reporting his symptoms and asking for help. It is reported that he was on his own for 98 minutes before the ambulance could arrive. He was 61.

A time lapse known as the 'Golden hour' is of vital importance if the effects of a heart attack are to be properly treated and in many cases, resultant damage reversed.

It is inconceivable that our ambulance resources should be so stretched as to deny a heart attack victim this one chance.

It is inconceivable that our medical service should be so stretched as to have been calling desperately for support from government so that they may properly fulfil their role.

This is not recent - they have been calling desperately for resources for a significant while but have been fobbed off with promises and inadequacy.

The time for further discussion, evasion, lies, omissions, delays, meaningless 'reassurances', apologies and misleading statements from politicians has been exhausted.

The country should and must support our NHS by demanding immediate action to ensure resources are made available to our NHS as soon as possible.

It is time for action and the government must immediately prioritise the need and find the money.

Let's face it, if any government can suddenly find over £1bn to support itself - if any parliament can find the money to fund often outrageous expenses for itself - if any parliament can subsidise cheap food and drink for itself - then it can certainly find resources to support our NHS for the country.

Let’s say you wanted to solve a few thorny health policy challenges all at once. Imagine, for example, that you wanted to employ over 150,000 doctors, nurses, and veterans nationwide; create billions of dollars in economic activity in the nation’s most under-resourced communities; save hundreds of dollars per person per year in health care costs; reduce hospital stays; improve access to care for the uninsured or the working poor; and do this with bipartisan support over a span of about half a century or so?

Well then you would deploy Community Health Centers (CHC), also known as Federally Qualified Health Centers, or what we like to call the best kept secret in primary care in America. Unfortunately nearly 62 million Americans who could benefit from these services do not have one of these health centers in their neighborhood, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).

Expansion of these centers became a key policy instrument in the last decade, as the nation sought to respond to a devastating economic downturn and design a national health reform program that would become the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The 21st Century Cures Act, which was signed into law in December 2016, further enhances the scope and promise of community health centers, by making it easier for licensed medical practitioners to volunteer at these centers, provides more grant funding that supplement states’ efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, and enable CHCs to participate in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

The CHCs in Maryland and Delaware operate in urban and rural areas, and are part of the Mid Atlantic Association of Community Health Centers (MACHC). A profile of their member clinics can be found here.

The situation is similar across the Mid Atlantic region. 

Here is a snapshot of how CHCs are doing in: Virginia; Pennsylvania; the District of Columbia; and West Virginia. 

CHCs also enjoy the benefit of public private partnerships, and importantly, address social determinants of health such as access to good nutrition, the challenges of homelessness and exposure environmental hazards, and income insecurity. This means, ultimately, that the delivery of timely primary and preventive care of the highest quality, with a keen sensitivity to the ability to pay, generates an amazing return on society’s investments in these clinics.

Why do all discussions related to education and social justice always end up like this? I know it may be starting to sound like a broken record to you and I both, but still a point that needs to be hammered home on the regular: all that money talk, all that lamenting about under-resourced, minority neighbourhood schools, all that madness.

This article discusses the $2,500 salary gap for teachers working in minority-schools compared to their counterparts in more affluent (read: white) neighbourhoods and affiliated schools. May not sound like much, but it's the tip of a deadly iceberg in terms of consequences and repercussions.

Let's look at the root of the problem: teachers in less-affluent neighbourhoods get paid less, are treated worse, don't have enough resources, and have to put in a Herculean effort to even dream of closing the achievement gap. Subsequently, they burn out, they naturally yearn for those bonuses and higher salary doled out at better-performing schools, and eventually make the move to a more stress-free existence. The achievement gap then widens as schools with a higher minority population have constant turn-over of first and second year teachers looking to move on after having 'paid their dues'.

How do we tackle this problem? The article argues, quite logically, that

To make things truly equitable for kids, districts should require that each school, whether it's in a minority or a white neighborhood, have about the same number of first or second-year teachers and veteran educators. That would also make the average salary of each school's pool of teachers the same. Or, we could always ditch the salary schedules and give more money to teachers working their butts off to close the achievement gap, no matter how many years they have on the job.

So throwing that 'broken record' caution to wind - it unfortunately boils down to talk of money. Yet again.

Teachers deserve it, those kids desperately need it, and the world will thus become a more fair and equitable place.