The World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank say that half of the world’s population don’t have access to basic healthcare or essential health services. That is almost 4 billion people in the world who don’t have access to doctors, hospitals, medicines, and other basic healthcare services that any human being has a right to. These numbers are particularly dire in the time of COVID-19 because it goes to show that the poor and marginalized will always be the last to receive the help they need.
While what we need for lasting change to happen is systematic change and solidarity, not charity, we also can’t discount the work of various non-profit organizations that are doing everything they can in their power to provide healthcare to those who need it, no matter their state or station in life. Here are some non-profit organizations that are changing the world through healthcare.
Addressing malnutrition
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) was established to turn the world into one that has no malnutrition. Established in 2002, GAIN was founded during one of the United Nations General Assembly on Children’s special sessions. GAIN is primarily supported by partnerships that are both public and private. They work to enhance not just awareness but also the marginalized’s immediate access to nutritious food and diet to help them become healthier and stronger.
GAIN believes that when people are healthy, economies and communities follow suit. Since its inception, GAIN has partnered with international agencies and governments to start projects and has provided 667 million people with food products and meals that were enhanced to provide nutrition. They primarily work with women and children, who are statistically more vulnerable, especially in developing countries.
As a response to COVID-19, GAIN took opportunities to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs), recalibrated their existing and effective programs, and convened experts to assess the impact of the crisis and recommend mitigation strategies.
Improving the lives of the chronically ill
CoachMe Health is a tech non-profit group established to help lessen the gap in health equity by helping underserved patients battling various kinds of chronic diseases. They work primarily with low-income Americans who need culturally sensitive, personal, and tech-enabled healthcare.
The group believes that everyone—whether they have insurance or not, whether they’re tech-savvy or not—deserves to benefit from advanced healthcare technology. They work with personal health coaches, whose job description involves helping patients make desirable and lasting changes in their health. And since the numbers show that people from underserved groups and those who are unemployed are more likely to contract COVID-19, the organization has worked to keep low-income beneficiaries safe and healthy by providing them with quality virtual health coaching.
Bringing healthcare to the world’s underserved
Every day, millions of people die due to preventable diseases. More often than not, they wouldn’t have passed if only they had access to basic healthcare, if they had been diagnosed early, and were provided with the medical resources they needed. Some examples of this phenomenon include impoverished children who die from diseases like pneumonia, malaria, and diarrheal disease.
Underserved adults with chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes also don’t receive the help they need due to lack of funds or their country’s lack of medical resources, and shortage of primary care providers like doctors and nurses. This is usually the case in rural areas where the poorest of the poor of the world live. These issues can be easily addressed if only health workers are trained and empowered, given their due, and deployed to provide medical help to those who need it the most.
This is where organizations like D-Tree International come in. The non-profit organization works to help healthcare workers in developing countries gain access to the medical tools and resources they need to effectively diagnose patients and help them back to recovery. The group also works to provide user-friendly software that guides a healthcare worker through the process of diagnosis and treatment.
They use innovative technology and processes to improve the healthcare programs in the world’s poorest nations. They also deal with pressing health matters like women’s reproductive issues and children’s health since research shows that protecting and empowering women and children is key to building the economy of poorer nations.
The COVID-19 crisis may be ravaging the world, but there are plenty of good people in the world who are working behind the scenes to bring help and health to those who need it the most. If we work together, we might be able to make lasting change for our neighbors.
