August 2016
An Overview of
IFMSA Programs Health Systems
Monica Lauridsen Kujabi - IMCC Denmark healthsystem@ifmsa.org
A good health system delivers quality services to all people, when and where they need them. Health systems worldwide face various challenges; the budget is substantially low, the quality is insufficient, the medicine and technologies are too few and too expensive and it doesn’t reach out to the remote areas. Actions conducted by medical students are needed to counter these issues. From the baseline assessment mainly 5 areas that medical students work on to improve the health system has been identified; Rural Health, Access to Medicines and technologies, Global Surgery, Universal Health Coverage and Trade & Health.
to 2400 people. Moreover, epidemiological data are gathered and articles are made. Except for caring for the health of these populations the aim of the activity is to raise awareness to the public and amongst medical students and doctors on rural health. This is an excellent example of how medical students can learn about rural health, as this is not covered in medical curricula. AMSAAustralia is another example were 70-100 medical
What we do – Findings from the baseline assessment A Global Surgery working group consisting of 12 NMOs have joined forces to collect data to show the scope of the problem and are doing awareness raising campaigns as for example the IFMSA global surgery day. IFMSA European Region has specifically been active in addressing the TTIP agreement, by encouraging NMOs from the whole region to address the parliament members and advocate nationally. Building capacity of medical students to encounter the challenges of Health Systems is one of the core roles of IFMSA. As such, pre-GAs, trainings and webinars have been held, and toolkits on Rural Health and Global Surgery is in the making. At the international level IFMSA is strengthening its collaboration with WONCA (global family doctors) in a joined working group on rural health while ISfTeH (telemedicine and eHealth) supported IFMSA in developing a webinar for our members. The work within Health Systems provides new opportunities for IFMSA, partners and NMOs to lead the path towards better health for all. A few initiatives are chosen to showcase how medical students work on Rural Health; During the Medical Caravan, more than 50 doctors including specialists and medical students travel to a distant area to screen, treat and educate between 700 www.ifmsa.org
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students meet during the 2-day Rural Health Colloquium to debate and learn about rural health solutions. CIMSAISMKI(Indonesia) is an example of an NMO with a huge rural population and high level of health literacy. Every project they do, whether it is about TB or smoking, has the overall goal of empowering communities to increase their quality of life, and making the right choices in health. By engaging in the program we hope activities will develop in new directions always aiming at having the greatest impact on society. We are looking forward to a closer collaboration with IFMSA-Morocco, CIMSAISMKI, AMSA-Australia and other NMOs enrolled in the program.