Columbus Day

Monday was Columbus day. A celebration of Americas founding. It was then in 1492 that the first immigrants arrived in the new world. The new world discovery became a source of riches and unlimited bounty for the explorers, their families, sires and countries.

Today the nearly eight billion inhabitants of the world are sweltering in some areas while basking in riches in others. It must be remembered that overcrowding and lack of adequate resources are the reason powerful nations have always overtaken the resources of others for their own use. But today many of the resources are depleted. Thus the need for people to seek refuge elsewhere, only to face humiliating and genocidal consequences.
In the past few years, Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded to activists and advocates of the victims of these injustices around the world. People like Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Malala Yousafazi, Jane Addams and others. This year the prize is awarded to two who have been on the forefront of these wars. Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese physician whose been treating thousands of women who were victims of rape in Congo. Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights activist and a victim herself of the wars in the Middle East.
It is interesting that 17 of the Nobel Peace Prize winners were women - more than any other category, ten of whom were from the so-called developing countries and nine of which received their prize in the last 20 years. Two of the three youngest people to receive the Nobel Prize, received it in the Peace category. Listening to most of their speeches, the main concern they had was the health of the victims. The victims' fate and destiny lands them in such dire and inhumane conditions, sickness and disease follows them. While governments and international organizations struggle with their political and economical consequences, healthcare providers have to deal with their health issues on an individual and personal basis. Often treating that which cannot be dealt with under such conditions. Perhaps if those objecting to these people's plight could only listen to the snuffled cries of children, smell the stench of wounds in a burn ward, or see the emaciated body of a starving individual with their own eyes, they would see the situation in a different light. Our Nobel Peace Prize recipients have seen these conditions and tried to do something about them, only to pay for it with their lives or livelihood. Our world is crying, let's stop blaming and start helping. We have the technology with which to do it. We just need the wherewithal to do it. Telehealth, Telemedicine, and Tele-education can help, lets use it.