Shelley Wall, MBChB, Nikki Allorto, MBChB, Ross Weale, MBBS, Victor Kong, PhD, and Damian Clarke, PhD
Caring for severe burn injuries in low- and middle-income countries requires making decisions about resource allocation given particular contextual factors.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(6):575-580. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.6.msoc1-1806.
Should a family’s ability to afford follow-up care for a child who needs “miracle surgery” play a role in the physician’s decision to operate? Would the answer change depending on the patient’s immigration status?
We must not pit immigration policy and health care needs against one another. We need better policy on immigration, and that policy should confront immigration at the workplace and at the border—not in the hospital emergency room.
There are “push” factors such as poor working conditions, substandard facilities, unsafe conditions, and low income that discourage health professionals trained in Indian medical schools from staying in country.
A major contributor to the lack of medicines in developing countries is an intellectual property regime that allows proprietary drug companies with intellectual property monopolies to charge high prices and maximize profit.