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ABSTRAC
Developing countries are those countries which have not yet attained economic stability. Most of them thrive on debts and donations from other nations. They rely a lot on what others have to offer them in addition to the little they can produce using their natural resources. Such countries export primary products. They are yet to industrialize so that they can process their products and sell them to other nations as finished products. Developed countries take advantage of the developing countries. They buy their raw products at lower prices, process them, and then sell them back to these nations at higher prices. Jordan is one of the developing countries.
It is located in the Middle East, and it is not big in size. It occupies 89,341 km2, and only about 7% is arable land. It is bordered by two nations which are politically unstable. They are Iraq and Palestine. As a result, it accommodates a lot of refugees. It thus receives help from organizations such as Red Cross and United Nations so as to enable them to take care of the refugees. Just like any other nation, Jordan has been a country with a lot of inequality cases. Health inequality is one of them. Despite the country being a medical tourism destination in the Middle East, there are health inequality cases that are experienced. For instance, most of the medical services are concentrated in the Amman, its capital city, leaving less for the other parts of the country. This write-up focuses on establishing the relationship between health inequalities and economic wellbeing.
As per the findings of the paper, the economic wellbeing of Jordan has increased since 2011. It can be viewed from table 1.1, 1.2, and 1.4 which outlines the trend in GDP, Per Capita, and Life expectancy accordingly. These analyzes literature, also shows that the inequality rate in the health sector has been declining each year. It was thus concluded that the relationship that exists between an inverse one. The higher the economic wellbeing, the lower the health inequalities and vice versa.
PAPER
In the year 2000, the leaders of the world united and made a decision together to adopt the Millennium Declaration of 2000 commonly known as the Millennium Development Goals. The main focus of the development was to curb the rate of inequality in the whole world. Many nations have tried to reduce inequality in all sectors in their country. However, inequality still remains. Inequality can be defined as the gap that exists between groups of people or classes of people in the county. For instance, the gap between the rich and the poor when it comes to receiving certain services from the government such as health care. There is no single country, even the United States of America that has been able to do away with inequality. It does not, however, mean that the rate of inequality is the same as it was before. The reality is that inequality has reduced in all countries (United Nations, 2013).
After the failure of the millennium development goals to be fulfilled, the world has given the leaders another chance at reducing inequality. The sustainable development goals are now in place, and they have replaced the millennium development goals. The deadline of the achievement of the goals is 2030. By then, the world hopes to have significantly reduced inequality in all sectors, and in all countries. The main focus is in the developing countries. There is a lot of inequality in all the developing countries as compared to the developed countries. The purpose of this write-up is on the relationship between health inequality and wellbeing of people in developing countries. The main focus will be on Jordan, which is part of the developing countries.
Jordan is a country located in the Middle East, and it is part of the Eastern Mediterranean countries. It is an Arab speaking kingdom and it is located on the east river bank of the river Jordan. Iraq borders it to the North-West, Saudi Arabia to the South and Israel East, and Palestine to the West. It accommodates a lot of refugees, especially from Syria (Gunnarson, 2013). It is strategically located at the crossroad of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The current population is 9.5 million people, most of whom live in Amman its capital city. A king rules it and the current one is known as King Abdullah II. The country has limited natural resources. For instance, it is classified among the ten countries which do not have enough water. It is a semi-arid area. It has only seven percent of its land which is arable. The rest is pure desert, and nothing can be grown. However, the country still manages to cater for the population, although at times the United Nations and other organizations help. They bring in help in a form of donations.
It is hard to find a country with no kind inequalities that affect it. A place where all citizens exercise the same rights and services without any of them being in a better position than the rest. Jordan is no exception as there is a lot of inequality that occurs in that country. However, the inequality is not as much as in most other countries that surround it. Iraq and Palestine, for example, are at war, and they are very unstable. There exists inequality in all sectors of their economy, and thus, Jordan can be said to be better compared to its neighbors. It is especially true in the area of health.
Jordan has an excellent and advanced health care system. However, inequality in the health sector comes in as most of the health care services are concentrated in the Amman its capital city. It is the place that hosts a lot of people giving it a recognized position among the most densely populated cities in the world. Most of the government personnel’s also reside there. It is also the home to the monarchy, and thus, the royal family also lived there. It might explain why most of the health care are concentrated in this part as compared to other places in the country. Despite this, Jordan remains among the top five countries in the Middle East to spend a lot on healthcare provision for its citizens. It is also classified as a medical tourism destination in the both North Africa and the Middle East. So many travels to obtain medical attention from these places as well as the rest of the world (United Nations, 2013).
The healthcare system of the country is divided into two part. One part is the public, and the other is the private sector. They both play crucial roles in health care provision for the citizens of Jordan. The government plays the largest role in the provision of health care services. It does so through the ministry of health which operates hospitals and medical centers in the country. The ministry of health in Jordan runs a total of one thousand two hundred and forty-five health care centers. It also operates twenty-seven hospitals. The health care centers and the hospital put together accounts for thirty-seven percent of the health care services provided in Jordan.
The royal court also operates some hospitals. They have the military royal medical service which has eleven hospitals under their care. The military hospitals account twenty-four percent of the medical services provided in the country. The government of Jordan also has a university hospital known as Jordan university hospital. It is where they take most of the students training to be doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals for training. The hospital accounts for three percent of the health care service provided in the country. Altogether, the government provides sixty-four percent of the medical services in the country. The private sector, on the other hand, gives the remaining thirty-six percent.
The government thus plays a vital role in the provision of health care services to its citizens. It ensures that all the medical facilities under its jurisdiction are well maintained. It also ensures that enough medical personnel are available to cater for the needs of the citizens. It also provides pharmaceutical products for the facilities. Doing so ensures that the citizens obtain the right treatment and enough medicine to cater for their health. It also helps to ensure that medicines are available at lower prices for the public. It helps to ensure that the population remains healthy and is thus capable of working.
Economic well-being can be defined as an individual’s, families, or population’s living standard, which is based on their financial situation. The more the amount of finance, the more the person’s economic wellbeing. Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the measures of economic wellbeing. Table 1.1 provided an outline of the Gross Domestic Product of Jordan from 2011 to 2014. As can be seen from the trend, the gross domestic products keep on increasing every year. There is no single year in between when the GDP has gone down. Rather, there is a significant increase every year. It implies that the economic wellbeing of the citizens of Jordan in relation to GDP increases every year. The economy of the country in general also increases each year as is proven by the trend from 2011 to 2014.
Another indicator of wellbeing is life expectancy at delivery. It shows the number of years a newborn can live based on the economic, health, and other situations in the country where they are born. Between 2011 and 2014, the life expectancy of Jordan increased. The increase has been just by a few decimals, but increased it. It implies that the situation in the country was getting better each year. The people were also healthy (UNDP, 2015).
A relationship can be seen to exist between economic wellbeing and health inequality. In Jordan, the health inequalities are declining every year. Economic wellbeing, on the other hand, is increasing each year. It implies that the wealthier a nation is, the less the health inequality cases that are reported. It can be a conclusion for all developing countries as Jordan is a representation of the developing countries. In these countries, the higher the economic wellbeing of the citizens, the fewer the cases of health inequality. To reduce the health inequality cases, the government of developing countries ought to increase the economic wellbeing of their citizens. Doing so ensures that their living standards increase. They thus can afford health care services. Governments can also provide cheaper or lower charge services at government-owned medical facilities. They should also ensure that people in all parts of the country receive the necessary health care they need through ensuring that there are medical facilities all over the country, and they have medical personnels.
References
Gunnarson, J. (2013). Meeting the health needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan: a novel model for non-communicable disease care in a refugee setting. Amman: Jordan Ministry of Health.
UNDP. (2015). Human Development Report 2015. United Nations.
United Nations. (2013). Inequality Matters: Report of the World Social Situation 2013. New York: United Nations.
APPENDIX
Source: World Bank website
Source: World Bank website
Source: World Health Organization website
Source: World Health Organization website
