埃博拉疫情充分暴露资本主义弊病

　　贪婪、疯狂的资本主义的方方面面都在此次西非疫情中凸显。

理论上，埃博拉并非很难控制的传染病，因为它不过是通过直接接触病源(感染的动物或人)体液而传播，而且这种病毒不易在空气中存活，足以被肥皂或热水杀死。只要根据病毒的上述特征加以防护，完全可以控制疾病的传播。关键是要有足够的医护人员!

但此次疫情是1976年发现埃博拉病毒以来最严重的。而且还传播到了6000英里外的美国，居然还感染了2个护士，真匪夷所思!对资本主义社会来说，神马疫情控制，他们更关心限制国际旅行会触动他们的利润。

美国的人均医疗投入是$8900/年，而非洲疫源利比里亚只有$65/年;美国GDP的18%用于医疗，虽然英国只用9.4%，但各项指标都比美国好，包括人均寿命(编者注：英国医疗体系不是市场化的！)。那么这么多钱都哪儿去了?至少30%去喂那些贪得无厌的保险公司了!

　　医护人员流向哪里？

非洲疫区极其缺乏人力、物力资源，有的医院只有4个医护人员，塞拉利昂只有不到100名医生服务于公共领域，护士缺口60%;全利比里亚只有51名医生!这点人如何落实从预防到治疗的各项措施?

在非洲医护人员如此稀缺的背景下，据传，英美医疗系统还在招募他们来为自己服务，主要通过养老院进入护理劳务市场。

　　学习古巴好榜样

看看把所有人的健康放在首位的古巴所能创造的成就吧：它的新生儿死亡率低于美国，而且消耗的资源只有美国的1/20。更令人钦佩的是他们对发展中国家的无私帮助，为非洲派去4000多名医护人员(其中2,269人是医生)。与此同时，很多猎头公司还在挖非洲的医疗人力资源到欧美医院服务…（进步青年网编译）

　　原文： Ebola: capitalist health exposed

http://www.cpbml.org.uk/news/ebola-capitalist-health-exposed

Just about every aspect of the insanity of capitalismis exposed by the current outbreak of Ebola virus centred on west Africa.

In principle, it should not be too difficult to control Ebola. But that’s not what has happened. The outbreak is now the worst on record – by some distance – and cases have also cropped up in the US.

It’s nearly 6,000 miles from Liberia to Dallas, Texas, the route travelled by Thomas Eric Duncan when he brought Ebola infection to the US. And it should be a world away in terms of healthcare. After all, the US spends about $8,900 per capita on health each year; Liberia around $65.

And it’s not as if Ebola is a particularly difficult disease to contain. Yes, it is highly contagious, but it does not transmit well through the air, and it degrades so rapidly under heat that washing your hands with soap and hot water is sufficient to kill it.

　　‘ALL CAPITALISM IS WORRIED ABOUT IS WHETHER RESTRICTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL MIGHT DENT PROFITS.’

Yet the two American nurses who treated Duncan at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital have both contracted Ebola. It seems as if some elementary disease control precautions were not implemented.

That’s par for the course for a country that devotes high sums to healthcare, but where so little of it goes towards treating people and ensuring proper prevention. And let’s face it, there’s no money for capitalism in Ebola management. All capitalism is worried about is whether restrictions on international travel might dent profits.

Despite spending 17.9 per cent of its GDP on healthcare (against 9.4 per cent by Britain), the US – according to the World Bank – ranks lower than Britain on almost every major health indicator, including life expectancy.

The NHS is generally acknowledged (except by politicians here) to be incredibly efficient and effective. Unlike the US, we don’t divert 30 per cent of healthcare funding to administration – amazingly, up from less than 25 per cent 20 years ago – primarily feeding the hungry mouths of insurance companies.

　　Importing staff

But like the US we rely on overseas labour to staff our health services, rather than training sufficient numbers of our own staff.

That’s not to denigrate the skill or bravery of health professionals from Britain who have gone to West Africa. But once there, they are finding such dire shortages of staff that teaching prevention has been a hard task.

One infection control expert from Camden, recently returned from a month-long stint in Sierra Leone, reported just four clinicians at the hospital in Kenema. Said Rebecca Stretch, “Staff were in short supply which made things difficult. For example, you couldn’t ‘buddy up’ as there was too much to do. ‘Buddying up’ is one of the best ways to help prevent the spread of infection as you have somebody to spot the risks whilst you work.”

King’s College London, which has a health partnership with Sierra Leone, says there are fewer than a hundred doctors practising in the public sector, and reports vacancy rates there of over 60 per cent for nurses. In 2010, the World Health Organization reported that there were only 51 doctors in the whole of Liberia.

Against that background, the continuing employment of African doctors in the British and US health systems is a scandal, and one that few people want to talk about. There has been some progress since the middle of the last decade, when just over half of all new applications to go on the nursing register were from abroad. And many people from abroad are using jobs in nursing homes as a back door into the British nursing market.

　　Cuba

To see what can really be achieved by a country that treats the health of all as a priority, look at Cuba. Not only is its infant mortality rate lower than that of the US, its solidarity with developing countries means that in September there were more than 4,000 Cuban health workers serving in Africa, 2,269 of them doctors.

While Cubans are supporting the workforce in Africa, too many recruiting agencies are still depleting the African health workforce to staff hospitals in Britain, Europe and the US.

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