Wednesday 22 August 2007

Literacy and Healthcare: Cuba, Venezuela and the USA

Education and healthcare are considered by most countries to be a right and not a privilege. Sadly many developing countries struggle to provide even the most basic of health and education to their citizens due to the fact that they simply cannot fiscally afford to. There are also a few countries rich enough to provide both to their population but don’t view either as a right.

I read an article today which noted that one in four Americans did not read a book last year and it brought to mind another article I read recently about a unique approach to promoting literacy in Venezuela. The programme uses mules to transport books to remote communities which would not normally have access to libraries.

Health care and insurance are major political issues in the US, the world’s richest country, where so many people are unable to afford basic healthcare and one of the news items today concerned a city health department report which states that one in six New Yorkers do not have health insurance. It made me recall an article of a few weeks ago about Cuban trained US doctors.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002,"

That's pretty incredible.

The high cost of medical care discouraged 41 percent of New Yorkers who had no insurance from seeking care.

This is really depressing. Though, I have to say in this country with a public health care system the situation is horrible as well, but in a differrent way.