Search

How does visualizing allows us to set the parameters to make the future vision a reality?

The American Red Cross is an organization that seeks to alleviate human suffering at the hands of emergencies by utilizing volunteerism. The organization focuses on domestic disaster response and support for the responders to those disasters, such as the armed forces.

"So as Haiti approaches the fifth anniversary of its cholera epidemic later this year, the main hope for eradication rests on political and legal pressure on the U.N. to come up with the money."

"With few exceptions, donor nations and nongovernmental organizations insist on keeping control of their projects, which are set according to their own priorities."

The most compelling parts of this film come from the film occur when a the viewer learns directly about a specific patient and the struggles they are facing. 

The article highlights public health security and "biosecurity" in the context of large scale efforts/interventions in response to public health threats. Various frameworks have been proposed and implemented to analyze and respond to the new range of pathogenic threats. These take form as research groups, global health initiatives, legislation and emergency preparedness plans. The article proposes looking at biosecurity with an STS multidisciplinary approach (though not explicitly stated as such) and has separated biosecurity into four unique domains. These are emerging infection disease, bioterrorism, cutting-edge life-sciences, and food safety. These all overlap throughout the article. The article further highlights the faults of the "public health" approach and emphasized the trend towards a preparadness model.

The aim of this organization is to provide emergency medical care and relief supplies to those who need it. They also work to provide medical care for those trying to escape violence or war. 

The article cites the merits and failures of the investigations following three disasters. These are the burning of the Capitol Building in 1814, a boiler explosion in 1850, and the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903.

To make this argument Knowles used various other academic papers, public and private reports from investigations, past and current government policies, and news articles and reports. 

The author cites a number of cases in which the law proved difficult to enforce. One example is seen when looking at the difference in residency application acceptance rates between different locales/prefects. The much larger and metropolitan areas would accept down to 47% of the applications, indicating a possibly fair division of candidates reviewed. Other more rural areas would accept over 90% of the applications, showing almost no distiguishment between ailments. The question becomes whether this is reflective on the doctors' judgements of "serious ailment" given location, the political beliefs of the prefect, or simply the lack of caring whether someone emmigrates or not. Another example of the flaws in this law is highlighted by a personal anecdote from a patient. The patient was given a diagnosis when originially coming to France on a personal visa. They were told their condition was quite serious and would require ongoing care. However, when the doctor who diagnosed him was asked to sign for evaluation for the residency permit, the doctor changed his diagnosis to something much less serious. The political thought behind the poicy came into play and interrupted the normal proceedings, tearing doctors between their obligations to the law (and only allow exceptional cases) and to medicine (and err on the side of caution).  

The author also highlights the development of this law and its effects in three stages. Pre-1990: Serious illness was a factor in residency completely at the discretion of local government. Immigrants were seen as workers and they served that purpose only. If a worker was sick, they were of no use to society. 1990-1998: Illness was more often factored into the decision making process, but those allowed to stay received no paid employment or social wellfare benefits. Post 1998: Written into law, ill immigrants were allowed to stay with the opportunity for pay and legal status in France. 

Emergency response is not directly addressed, but this article does discuss mental health counselors and debriefing of victims as key components of emergency response to a disaster to decrease the number of individuals who may suffer from mental illness due to the disaster in the future.