Showing posts with label Universal Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universal Healthcare. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2014

VIDEO : The moving moment a deaf woman HEARS for the first time

Deaf Joanne Milne HEARS for the first time with cochlear implants in moving video

In an amasing video, Joanne Milne, from Gateshead, a town in northeast England, is recorded as she hears sound for the first time after she underwent a life-changing operation to fit cochlear implants. The video documents the moment Ms. Milne's doctor tests the functionality of the cochlear implants. Ms. Milne, 40, suffers the rare condition called Usher Syndrome, which had left her deaf since birth and claimed her sight in her mid-20s. The cochlear implants have restored her sense of sound.

Ms. Milne's inspirational medical miracle story has moved many people, and she's attracted many supporters, including a mention on Twitter DJ Lauren Laverne, from BBC6 Radio.

Monday, December 30, 2013

India’s Efforts to Aid Poor Worry Drug Makers

India has almost no choice but to over-ride drug patents. $18,000 for one course of breast cancer-fighting treatment is like 10 Lakh Rupees. Even when some drugs are priced at $140 per month, that still comes out to over Rps 8,000. These are astronomical sums for poor people.

Alka Kudesia's story is heart-breaking, and it's no surprise that pharmaceutical companies are worried by an Indian drug company's plan to begin manufacturing a generic version of Herceptin.

As it stands now, about 23,000 Indian women need Herceptin, but they cannot get it.

Dr. Peter Bach's comment is smug, insensitive, and not entirely true. There's always been pressure on highly profitable pharmaceutical companies to stop exploiting the sick and frail. Among African countries, there have been pressures for Big Pharma to lower drug prices. That India forsakes begging for lower drug prices and opts instead to over-ride patents reflects how pharmaceutical companies wrongly put profits over people.

Maybe India can over-ride many other patents and set up new drug factories -- and be the change we need to see in revolutionizing global access to live-saving medications ? Crowd source it, maybe you might find helpers.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Madrid Protest To Save Healthcare

Madrid: Living streaming video of healthcare workers taking to the streets to demand saving a public healthcare system.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Divestment From Corrupt Private Health Insurance Industry

Health Care Workers, Patients Lead Fight for Divestment from Corrupt Private Health Insurance Industry : Presbyterian Church and TIAA-CREF Hear Their Call

Too Pig To Fail, Congress Sucking on Campaign Contributions from the Healthcare Industry prevent real reform and lead to corruption.

By Katie Robbins

In the midst of a fierce debate on the national level around the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, the Divestment Campaign for Health Care made its official debut. Its stated mission: “to expose how the health insurance industry puts the need for profit above the needs of patients and to escalate public support for total removal of the private health insurance companies from our nation’s health care.”

Leading advocacy organizations dedicated to single-payer health care are committed to pursuing a divestment campaign from private health insurance companies in order to transform the treatment of health care as a commodity into a basic human right for all people in the U.S.

“We are responsible for our investments, and particularly as health care workers and patients, we see the immorality of the private health insurance companies as they deny payment for care in order to create huge profits for shareholders. Those who stand for a just and equitable health care system must recognize the corrupting force of the private health insurance industry on our political process that costs tens of thousands of lives every year in addition to being a huge financial drain,” states Dr. Rob Stone, M.D.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) became the first major institution to take steps towards divestment from private health insurance. On July 7th, the church’s national assembly unanimously passed a resolution stating they will “evaluate the variance between church principles of universal access and affordability on the one hand and corporate objectives on the other. It will also assess the likelihood of significant change in corporate behavior.”

The resolution passed after moving testimony was delivered by Rev. Dr. Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos, the widow of the original author of the resolution, Rev. A. David Bos who passed away from a sudden case of pneumonia last year, stating before the committee:

“As he lay in the hospital, struggling with the oxygen mask provided to give his lungs the air they needed, he spoke haltingly what would be his last words on this earth: ‘How much will this cost?’ He died six days later. Three weeks after his death a representative from our health insurance company informed me in a telephone call that they rejected the claim to pay for my husband’s hospitalization and medical costs because of a ‘pre-existing condition.’”

Rev. Dr. van Wijk-Bos felt confident the work they had done would lead to full exposure of these corrupt companies because “corporate interests are incompatible with patient care.”

On the heels of this successful endorsement from the Presbyterian Church, activists gathered inside and outside the pension fund giant TIAA-CREF’s shareholder meeting in New York City to call attention to their holdings in private health insurance. Members of TIAA-CREF were shocked to learn that private health insurance companies are considered part of their socially responsible investment portfolio.

Sandy Fox, psychiatric social worker from Pittsburgh, PA, received applause from the other attendees when she asked President and CEO Roger Ferguson, Jr. about these holdings:

“How do you justify including health insurance companies–CIGNA, Humana, Aetna, Coventry, and WellPoint– in CREF-Social Choice? Private health insurance companies add enormous cost but no value to health care. Furthermore, these companies violate 3 of the 5 social criteria for inclusion in the fund including:

1) NOT “devoted to human rights;”

2) NOT “dedicated to producing high-quality and safe products;” and

3) NOT “managed in an exemplary and ethical manner.”

...We come to you today to demand that you immediately divest from these ruthless companies.”

Shortly before the meeting, the Campaign launched a petition to TIAA-CREF calling for them to move their money out of private health insurance receiving nearly 2000 signers in just a few days.

The Divestment Campaign for Health Care calls upon all people of conscience to shed light on the duplicitous practices that continue in the private health insurance industry. As the Campaign’s mission statement says “We have nothing to lose. Health insurance companies have everything to lose as their stock prices drop and their influence wanes. Go to your religious organization, your union, your pension plan, your 401k advisor, your university endowment, your city council, your friends and neighbors, and tell them it’s time to get the health insurers out!”

Originally posted at : Healthcare Not Wealthcare