Global Issues in Health Care Policies and Management

Question: Are developing countries following the track of developed countries? Answer: Today most of the countries are designated as developing country", therefore, it is obvious that they are trying to follow the path of developed countries. However, the real question is what is what is the current score of the developing countries while comparing with developed countries? Three random countries can be selected and compared to find out the answer. For instance, Australia is chosen as the developed country, and Nigeria and India are selected as developing countries. Australia has the 12th largest economy in the world. According to the survey of 2014, Australia had fifth-highest per capita income. Australia is the sixth largest country with a total GDP of $1.241 trillion (nominal) (Raphael, 2011). On the other hand, India is a developing country of South Asia. India is the seventh largest country, just behind the Australia with a population of 1.2 billion people. This country is considered as the most populous democracy in the world. India is a secular country, and it is found that four major religious originated here, such as Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism (Saha, 2013). On the other hand, other religions like Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam arrived and dissolved with the "Indian culture". The current GDP of India is 2.182 trillion (nominal); however, the per capita income is too low (Dave). Another developing country is Nigeria, situated in the West Africa, which comprises 36 states. Like India Nigeria is also known as secular democratic country. Nigeria has a population of 182 million inhabitants and popularly known as "Giant of Africa." Besides, there are 500 ethnic groups in the Nigeria, which include three major ethnic groups such as Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. It is found that more than 500 different languages are spoken in Nigeria, which is just the double of languages spoken in entire Australia (250). However, India beat them all, as the Indian census (1961) recognized 1,652 languages spoken in India and 22 of them are official languages. It is found that the differences of language and existence of different cultures are the main hindrance of the development of India and Nigeria is no exception. Though the official language of Nigeria is English, the country is distinctly divided between Christian and Muslims. From the research, it is found that developing country like India and Nigeria has a massive wealth gap, which means that the rich people are becoming richer and the poor people becoming poorer. In Nigeria, it is observed that most of the rich people spend their money to buy expensive jewelry and cars. The picture is almost same in India. In India, most of the rich people like to show off their money by building expensive houses or buying heavy muscle cars. On the other hand, it can be found that in Australia people try to lead almost a moderate life except of course the celebrities (Connell, 2012). The per capita income of Australia is more than the per capita income of India or Nigeria. However, the wealth gap is shorter in Australia than these developing countries. From a survey, it is found that average Australian people spend $223 on their housing and $20 for the health practitioners. Most of the common people in Australia have full life coverage. On the other hand, most of the common people in India do not posses any life coverage. When Nigeria is focused, it is observed that the condition of the common people in Nigeria as same as India. A huge number of common people of Nigeria are considered as below poverty line and do not posses any life coverage. According to the "Africa wealth report 2015", there are 15,400 dollar millionaires live in Nigeria, who posses, at least, one million dollars in their assets (Oluwatobi Ogunrinola, 2011). Now, here is a controversial part, most of the money possess by the rich people in Nigeria are not white or more precisely not legitimately earned. In the case of India, the situation is also very same as Nigeria. Most of the wealthy people in India do not possess white money, and they have their ways to convert black money into white money. Now the point is why a country put so much weight on their black money. This is because the amount of black money controls the inflation of the economic market. In Australia, there is less amount of inflation as the amount of black money in this country is not heavy. When the health related matters are compared among three of these chosen countries, it is observed that most of the common people in the developing countries still do not posses full life coverage. Although hospitals in the primary health centers in India offers free medical services to the poor people, in most of the cases these facilities are not sufficient. Still in the major rural part of India, people are deprived of free medicines and health care facilities provided by the governments. It is found that the availability of the health care facilities also varies in India depending upon different cultures. Most of the underprivileged women in the rural part of the India still give birth of the child in their homes and are deprived of the primary facilities of the health care system. In Nigeria, the country is completely divided into two parts depending on the religion Christian and Muslim (Perkins et al., 2012). The health care facilities greatly vary in these two parts of this co untry. However, it is a controversial topic, and the government is trying their best to resolve their problems. On the other hand, there are actually no health care-related problems or issues were found in the research. The nurses and the doctors are very cooperative and helpful. From a survey, it is found that the doctors in Australia charge lesser than the doctors in India are (Dyster, Meredith, 2012). Besides, the infrastructure of the health care system is far better in Australia than in the India and Nigeria. However, there is another factor that needs to be focused on; this is the political factor. In Australia, the political chaos is lesser than other developing as well as many developed countries in the world (Rosenberg et al., 2011). Especially in India, the political turbulence is highly noticeable. There are many political parties in India, and they are in a constant fight to hold on to their position, which in turn form a chaotic situation, and that is not helpful for the growth of the country (Bhupal, 2013). Besides, terrorism in India is well versed. There are more than six terrorist attacks in India in last one year, which is certainly not helpful in the development of a country, and these terrorist attacks can be considered as the failure of the Indian government. In Nigeria, the situation is almost same. In this country, the political turbulence is based on the differentiation of the cultures (Christian and Muslims). Most of the common people in this country are fighting with each other based on their religion (Bakare Olubokun, 2011). The government of Nigeria is trying their best to dissolve this problem and reach towards a permanent solution. However, they are not even closer to their success. So far, the developing countries are trying their best to hold on to their progress. It is a fact there are several pitfalls in this long journey, but it can be assumed that they will reach their target eventually. On the other hand, the developed countries like Australia just do not claim themselves as developed, but they are trying to help the developing countries in their progress by providing them resources. References Bakare, A. S., Olubokun, S. (2011). Health care expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria: An empirical study.Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences,2(2), 83-87. Bhupal, G. (2013).Development Issues in India: Analysis of Household Consumption Behavior and Health(Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University). Connell, R. (2012). Gender, health and theory: conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective.Social science medicine,74(11), 1675-1683. Dave, K. S. Indian Stock Exchanges Foreign Institutional Investor, healthy Indicators for Indian economy. Dyster, B., Meredith, D. (2012).Australia in the global economy: continuity and change. Cambridge University Press. Oluwatobi, S. O., Ogunrinola, O. I. (2011). Government expenditure on human capital development: Implications for economic growth in Nigeria.Journal of Sustainable Development,4(3), p72. Perkins, D. H., Radelet, S., Lindauer, D. L., Block, S. A. (2012). Economics of development. Raphael, D. (2011). The political economy of health promotion: part 2, national provision of the prerequisites of health.Health promotion international, dar058. Rosenberg, S., Hickie, I. B., Mendoza, J. (2011). Viewpoint: National mental health reform: less talk, more action.Sign, (1). Saha, S. (2013). Impact of health on productivity growth in India.International Journal of Economics, Finance.